Improving IIS Data Quality to Support Immunization Evaluation Activities

Montana is the 4th largest State in total land area with a relatively low population density. Montana's Sentinel Site area consists of 17 counties, with approximately 35,000 children ages 0-6 years.

Before the development of the statewide registry, each county maintained a local registry. Private providers submitted immunization data to the health department for entry into the registry. When the statewide system was implemented, records were imported into one database causing duplicates and other data quality issues. The Sentinel Site Project emphasis is to continually improve data quality and completeness. The objective of this activity is to use improved registry data for conducting AFIX assessments and VFC accountability profiles.

Five of the largest health departments and three of the largest clinics in each county participated in this quality assurance project.

Registry data was imported into the CDC's Comprehensive Clinic Assessment Software Application (CoCASA) and reports were sent to the clinics to pull charts for review by the Montana Immunization staff.

The Montana Immunization staff reviewed the charts and recorded the number of records with missing information and possible invalid doses and of these, the number of charts found with additional information; number of randomly selected records for accuracy check and of these, the number of charts with different information than the registry; number of duplicate records; and the number of records with VFC status marked. Any incorrect information or missing information was sent to the health department for inclusion in the registry.