Immunization Integration Program

The IIP, implemented by HIMSS, AIRA, and Drummond Group under a cooperative agreement with CDC IDAB, brings together IIS, EHRs and other health IT, HIEs, clinicians, public health, pharmacy systems, and other critical partners to improve immunization interoperability, information sharing and management.

By improving immunization interoperability and functionality, the IIP aims to improve data quality spanning from the point of care to public health with the longer-term goals of increasing vaccination coverage and reducing vaccine-preventable diseases. The IIP achieves its goals in two primary ways:

• The Testing and Recognition initiative, which facilitates the adoption of consensus immunization-related capabilities within EHRs and other clinical software to improve clinical decision-making and information sharing with IIS.
• The Collaborative which brings IIS, EHRs and other health IT, HIEs, clinicians, public health and other critical partners together to develop and drive the adoption of solutions to improve interoperability, information sharing, and access to immunization information by clinicians and public health.

The Collaborative plays a key role in the project’s efforts to improve information sharing and enable access to immunization information among IIS, EHRs and other health IT, HIEs, clinicians, public health and other critical partners.

The purpose of the Collaborative is to identify challenges associated with EHR-IIS immunization information sharing and management and to develop and drive the adoption of solutions that address those challenges.

The IIP uses the following approach to accomplish its goals:

• Strengthen relationships among IIS, EHRs and other health IT, HIEs, clinicians, public health and other critical partners via a governance structure that includes these essential perspectives
• Identify issues associated with interoperability and information sharing and management
• Develop recommended solutions of the prioritized issues
• Create resources to raise awareness of the impact to the issues challenging immunization interoperability
• Leverage channels to drive adoption of recommended solutions and their benefits to the immunization ecosystem

The program facilitates adoption of consensus immunization-related capabilities within EHRs that improve clinical decision-making, reduce burden and improve information sharing among vaccination providers and IIS by:

• Facilitating agreement on priority immunization-related software capabilities that improve clinical decision-making, reduce burden and improve information sharing among IIS, EHRs and other health IT, HIEs, clinicians, public health and other critical partners
• Operating a voluntary testing and recognition initiative that enables EHR and other software developers to both integrate and demonstrate their products’ inclusion of immunization-related capabilities

Products that have received IIP recognition have successfully tested against immunization-related software capabilities across eight clinical domains:

• Registering and identifying a patient (to assure the provider and the registry are communicating about the same patient)
• Managing external query, response and reconciliation (to enable bidirectional data sharing with immunization registries, providing more accurate data for managing patient care)
• Managing information for clinical decision-making (to enable the right immunization at the right time for the right patients)
• Managing inventory (to assist with managing private vaccine and government guarantee program stock)
• Administering and reporting immunizations (to assure accurate, non-obtrusive data entry, enabling patient management and reporting to immunization registries)
• Managing cohorts of patients (to encourage timely vaccinations and help manage any vaccine recalls)
• Managing adverse events (to identify safety issues, help prevent future adverse events, and support reporting)
• Providing patient access to immunization information (to help patients and their caregivers access their immunization histories)

• The IIP has been approved by the ONC as an alternative testing method for the ONC Health IT Certification Program.
• Five of the core testing requirements under the IIP align with Certification Criteria within (f)(1) Transmission to Immunization Registries within the ONC Health IT Certification Program.
• IIP’s approval by ONC as an alternative testing method means that those software products that achieve IIP recognition can “get credit” for having successfully tested against the ONC Health IT Certification (f)(1) Certification Criteria.
• ONC-Approved Health IT Certification bodies can now rely upon IIP Recognition, and therefore, will not need to also test for compliance with ONC’s (f)(1) Certification Criteria.