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Electronic data exchange improves child, adolescent vaccine status
Exchanging data between a city-run immunization registry system and patients’ electronic medical health records helped to improve child and adolescent vaccine compliance, according to recent research in Pediatrics.
“The objective of this study was to assess the impact of … bidirectional exchange of immunization information on up-to-date rates, overimmunization and immunization record completeness,” Melissa S. Stockwell, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and colleagues wrote. “This study demonstrates that data exchange can improve child and adolescent immunization status, allowing scarce resources to be targeted to those who are truly underimmunized.”
Melissa S. Stockwell
The researchers utilized information from five community clinics in New York, which exchange data between electronic medical health records and a citywide immunization registry maintained by the New York City Department of Health. To determine the effect of data exchange on vaccine status, the researchers compared vaccination data for 6,452 patients, before the data exchange was implemented in 2009, with vaccination data of 6,124 patients after implementation in 2010. Study participants were children aged 19 to 35 months, 7 to 10 years and 13 to 17 years.
The researchers found that up-to-date vaccine compliance increased significantly across all age groups, from 75% before data exchange to 81.6%, afterward. Furthermore, study results showed the proportion of overimmunized children decreased from 8.8% to 4.7% across all age groups, with significant decreases noted among adolescents.
“Having the combined data available in a practice or institution’s own database may be particularly important because organizations need to demonstrate compliance with immunizations to outside organizations such as insurance companies and federal incentive programs,” Stockwell and colleagues wrote. “Additional development of the technology to support bidirectional immunization exchange and continued focus on local, state and federal policies to support such exchanges are needed.”
In a related editorial, Simon J. Hambidge, MD, PhD, of the departments of pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Colorado, wrote that this study highlights the effectiveness of using immunization as a motivator for changes in public health policy.
“The work of Stockwell [and colleagues] demonstrates the ongoing impact of immunization delivery science and policy,” Hambidge wrote. “Bidirectional information exchange between public health registries (immunization information systems) and clinical records (electronic health records) can have clear and measurable effects. As the authors note, we need a continued focus on local, state, and federal policies to nurture such exchanges.” – by David Costill
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
