Oral

Immunization information systems (IIS) are confidential, computerized systems that collect and consolidate vaccination data from health-care providers and have a variety of useful capabilities such as assessing vaccination coverage levels and generating reminder and recall notifications. The IIS sentinel site project is a federally-sponsored project that funds eight IIS that have achieved high-quality population-based, comprehensive data to demonstrate the usefulness of IIS data and illustrate how these data can be used to support immunization program evaluation and epidemiologic activities. Data analysis methodology developed in the IIS sentinel sites will ultimately serve other IIS as they continue to mature and achieve high participation levels. This session proposes to provide perspectives from the CDC and from state IIS sentinel sites on the identification of populations that are particularly vulnerable to vaccine-preventable-diseases, and the use of IIS to facilitate vaccination of these populations. The federal perspective will discuss opportunities and challenges related to the use of IIS data to identify and vaccinate vulnerable populations such as record linkage with disease registries, completeness of race/ethnicity data, monitoring vaccination exemptors, etc. Two state IIS sentinel sites, Arizona and Colorado, will discuss how their IIS have been used to serve vulnerable populations in their state. Specifically, Arizona will discuss the use of their IIS to reach Hepatitis-vulnerable populations, and Colorado will discuss the use of their IIS to assess vaccination patterns in rural populations.

Session Objectives: 1) Discuss opportunities and challenges related to use of IIS data to identify populations vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases 2) Describe benefits and challenges of using IIS data to facilitate outreach to vulnerable populations 3) Describe benefits and challenges of using IIS data for vaccination assessment activities for vulnerable populations

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)