HIMSS Immunization Integration Program: Cerner, six other tools now certified

The HIMSS Immunization Integration Program on Wednesday announced that five health IT products have met its criteria.

Those are Cerner’s FirstNet and PowerChart, Glenwood Systems’ GlaceEMR, HealthCareXchange’s TheVaccinator, Qvera’s Interface Engine and the Physicians – Practitioners Office Assistant from Electronics Services Technologies.

The initiative, supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and approved for health IT certification by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, is designed to improve the quality and timeliness of immunization-related data public health departments exchange with private providers.

“The program is focused on the immunization encounter and making sure EHRs have immunization capabilities that will lead to better clinical decision making, reporting and information sharing, forecast delivery with registries, to get more complete records into these systems,” said Warren Williams, branch chief, Immunization Information Systems Support Branch, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC. “It's important that the quality of immunization-related data public health gets from providers is as accurate as it can possibly be.”

Public health agencies, in turn, can provide better information back to those providers. Having more accurate data during clinical encounters enables doctors and nurses to deliver better care by having a patient history and a forecast to know what shots a person needs, for example.

And it helps hospitals and EHR vendors meet meaningful use requirements, Williams said.

“We were pretty excited that ONC recognized the program as an alternate testing method,” Williams said. “Vendors participating in this can also get credit for achieving that criteria against ONC certification – I think that’s a benefit for us as well as ONC.”

HIMSS announced the IIP in July of 2017 with collaborators Drummond Group and Chickasaw Health Consulting.