After months of waiting, the U.S. has started to rollout COVID-19 vaccines for its citizens. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses. Therefore, it is crucial for the U.S. to successfully track who hasn’t received the vaccine yet, who is waiting on a second vaccine dose, and who has been administered both doses.
Right now, healthcare providers must report this information to their respective state registries. This information is then reported to different management systems before finally making it to the national level. Our latest article reviews why healthcare providers must remain vigilant about reporting vaccination information to state registries while also breaking down the current vaccination tracking process.
Importance of Immunization State Registries for Healthcare Providers and Patients
State registries are necessary for managing public health and improving patient outcomes.
Immunization registries are essential for collecting and tracking vaccination data about residents inhabiting a certain geographic area. Users can typically upload data to their state registry and download pertinent information from the registry.
Electronic health records (EHRs) also play an essential role in vaccine tracking.Suppose your company connects its EHR to your state’s immunization registry. In that case, you can dramatically cut down on time spent tracking and managing vaccinations.
Benefits of Connecting EHRs to State Registries
Other benefits of connecting your EHR to your state registry include:
- Enjoying quick access to immunization data for patients, schools, workplaces, and other healthcare providers to review
- The ability to track childhood immunizations as they attend different schools or even change doctors
- Access to public health information to check the number of immunizations in a certain area
- Capabilities for tracking outbreaks in a particular area
In the next section, you will see how crucial it is for healthcare providers to have streamlined access to public health registries for COVID-19 vaccine tracking.
Tracking COVID-19 Vaccines with Multiple Doses
Healthcare providers need a streamlined process for tracking multiple doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in different patients.
When it comes to COVID-19 vaccine tracking, healthcare providers must remember two crucial factors:
- They must track who has and who hasn’t received a COVID-19 vaccine yet
- Since both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two doses, healthcare providers must also track these doses among those getting the vaccine
Submitting immunization data to one’s respective state registry is more important than ever for helping officials around the country track these vaccinations. To help guide these efforts, the U.S. government has been managing Operation Warp Speed since May 2020.
Operation Warp Speed Tiberius
Under Operation Warp Speed, healthcare providers must follow specific guidelines for distributing and tracking vaccinations. Its ultimate goal is to deliver 300 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to U.S. citizens. Officials spearheading the effort have also debuted a software dedicated to guiding vaccine distribution called Tiberius.
Tiberius was built to incorporate pertinent information from multiple sources. In turn, this would allow analysts to manage vaccination efforts. Medical providers can also leverage the Tiberius platform to determine where certain vaccine doses should go.
Here is the current vaccine tracking process:
- The patient receives a vaccination from the doctor’s office or another vaccination site.
- The patient’s data is submitted to their respective state’s immunization information system.
- Before reaching Tiberius, the patient’s data is distributed to numerous data storage centers, including a VaccineFinder, Vaccination Administration Management System (VAMS), the CDC’s Vaccine Tracking System (VTrckS), and different commercial distribution partners.
As you can see, the process for getting the patient’s information to Tiberius can get a bit fragmented the further down you go. Nonetheless, medical professionals must enter vaccination information to their state registries to eventually report back to Tiberius.
Pub Hub 2.0 and State Registries
Iron Bridge offers bi-directional access to all immunization state registries in the country.
Because of the complex nature of the current vaccination tracking system, many healthcare officials are calling for a more streamlined process. It could also help healthcare providers determine long-term efficacy by different vaccine manufacturers.
Until then, the country is monitoring vaccination updates under Operation Warp Speed’s tracking model. If your healthcare organization has not already integrated its EHR with its state registry, now is the time to do so.
Pub Hub 2.0 by Iron Bridge is specially designed to give different EHR vendors, pharmacies, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations point-to-point connections with other industry players across the country. With just one initial connection, organizations can enjoy bi-directional access to every immunization registry in the country through Pub Hub 2.0. As the vaccine rollout continues, having streamlined access to other healthcare organizations will remain more important than ever.
Iron Bridge specializes in providing innovative health IT solutions for your organization. Connecting to different state registries across the country will remain crucial as the vaccine rollout continues. Pub Hub 2.0 makes it possible for organizations to send immunization data through just a single connection. Learn more about our IT solutions for public health management now!
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