How HIE of Michigan serves immunization records lookups

Clinicians seek value in having access to immunization records of patients, but the procedure for sharing that data traditionally has been ponderous and manual.

That is changing in Michigan; where the information exchange of state, Great Lakes Health Connect, in the last year has enabled providers to straightly query the immunization records of HIE through their electronic health records (EHRs) systems, hence enabling them to do so as clinicians are delivering care to sufferers.

It is the latest in what has been a slow, steady march toward making better the record sharing in the state.

In the year of 1996, Michigan lawmakers developed a childhood immunization registry to enable physicians to approach to immunization records held in what became the Michigan Care Improvement Registry (MCIR). Some ten years later, the registry expanded to involve records from all citizens; physicians were needed to submit immunization records to MCIR.

Great Lakes Health Connect now helps physicians in transmitting their immunization records to the MCIR and has more than 1,400 practices doing so. Although, the records previously weren’t automatically transmitted into physician electronic health record systems, causing workflow problems.

The latest approach enables 2-way communication between a provider EHR and the MCIR. A small number of early adopter hospitals and physician practices are utilizing the immunization query capability; various other provider organizations are now in the pipeline to use the service.

When a sufferer checks in for an appointment, Great Lakes Health Connect sends over immunization records that are placed into the patient chart and also demonstrates what information in the records are new.

Kenny O’Neill, vice president of clinical integration at three-hospital Lakeland Health System, a client of the HIE since the year of 2010 and serving southwest Michigan, says the integration of immunization records and EHRs is significant.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that adults over the age of 65 get an annual vaccine to secure against pneumonia,” he claims. “There are 2 competing vaccines in this class, but they can’t be administered within twelve months of each other. A patient might remember whether or not they have had a pneumonia vaccine in the past, but they aren’t likely to know which one they were given. If this data does not already reside in their electronic health record (EHR), the information can be discovered in the state repository.

“Prior to having the capability to query MCIR through our electronic health record, a provider would have to exit the EHR, start a separate browser to get to the MCIR web site, log into the database, search for the necessary data, then copy and paste it into the sufferer’s record back in the EHR system. This might seem like a relatively minor problem, but it interrupts the interaction with the sufferer at the point of care. Multiplied across many sufferers, that can add up to a significant waste of time. Great Lakes Health Connect’s immunization query functionality permits more time and greater attention to be concentrated on patient care.”

Integrating immunization records is quite seamless now, but the HIE and Lakeland Health System, the pilot site, had to work out few technical problems to speed up the connection and response times with the registry, claims George Bosnjak, director of business development at Great Lakes. Extra interface testing with the registry also was required to make it all work, states Kenneth Lomonaco, EHR manager at Great Lakes.