Are you ready to administer COVID-19 vaccines?

With multiple COVID-19 vaccine candidates currently in Stage 3 trials, the U.S. CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has published its Operation Warp Speed strategy and playbook for distributing vaccines. The complex plan relies on several critical components beginning with prioritizing the population followed by allocating the vaccine, distribution, administration, monitoring safety and effectiveness, and tracking second doses.

An extensive data monitoring infrastructure — including appropriate IT architecture — is highlighted in these documents as critical to success. Organizations that administer vaccines will need the capability to accurately capture and share data at the federal, state, local and tribal levels to ensure efficient management of the vaccine program. 

With healthcare workers high on the priority list, the impact of the upcoming COVID-19 vaccine is significant for many of our customers. Our Chief Product Evangelist and on-staff medical director, Dr. Rich Hammel along with our Director of Account Management, Emily McComb have been leading the effort to configure a workflow within Enterprise Health in partnership with a large healthcare system client in New York. 

While the workflow is preliminary, it is based on modifying proven existing mass immunization functionality already used by large employers, including health systems, to manage employee flu immunization programs. The COVID-19-specific workflow will be finalized once published contraindications, administration schedules, CDC CVX codes, VIS and associated barcodes, and other details are available.

The Enterprise Health COVID-19 immunization workflow will enable employers to:

• Manage vaccine administration to employee populations based on prioritization using rules-based health surveillance panels based on factors such as job role, department, work location or other criteria established to identify critical populations.
• Automate the sending of invitation and reminder emails to notify employees they are eligible for a vaccine.
• Direct employees to a portal to schedule a vaccine and provide electronic consent or declination.
• Rapidly document vaccine administration using a mass injection screen that includes missing consent alerts. 

Another facet of the CDC’s strategy that Dr. Hammel is monitoring closely is the requirement for organizations to report COVID-19 vaccines to a registry. Enterprise Health already has real time interfaces with many state immunization information systems (IIS) which should simplify reporting if the CDC leverages these existing state systems to electronically feed information to a COVID-19 registry.

While there are still many questions surrounding the delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine, organizations that will be administering vaccines need to be preparing now to ensure rapid and safe distribution. Let us know if you would like to see a demonstration of the Enterprise Health mass immunization module to get an idea of how our comprehensive occupational health IT solution helps manage mass immunization events.