Boston Medical Center deploys Fusionfx Immunization Management portal to manage H1N1 vaccination

Acknowledging the critical role of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines in ensuring the safety and efficacy of H1N1 vaccinations, Carefx Corporation, a leading provider of interoperable workflow solutions to advance the quality and safety of patient care, today announced that Boston Medical Center (BMC) has deployed the Fusionfx Immunization Management portal designed to enter and track H1N1 vaccination administration history and support broad, community-wide immunization administration tracking.

"Deployed in less than two weeks, the immunization management portal empowers BMC to leverage the existing consent processes and portal infrastructure of its community information exchange (CIE) to integrate vaccination information from community health centers (CHCs) and acute care facilities, and facilitate vaccination data sharing among CHCs," said Daniel Newman, M.D., BMC's Chief Medical Information Officer. "Using Carefx's solution, BMC is better able to adhere to the most appropriate H1N1 multi-dose regimen and sequence in conjunction with seasonal flu and pneumovax administration."

Whether BMC patients and employees receive their H1N1, seasonal flu and pneumovax vaccinations in emergency departments, CHCs, or inpatient facilities, the Fusionfx immunization management portal enables vaccination data to be captured, integrated with CIE data and used for reporting. The portal also captures demographic, lab and workflow data, information on H1N1, seasonal flu and pneumovax vaccinations and clinical evaluation.

"The Fusionfx immunization management portal will help BMC professionals follow CDC guidelines related to issues such as adult and pediatric dosing and required intervals between H1N1, seasonal flu and pneumovax vaccinations at the point of care," said Qi Li, M.D., Carefx's Vice President of Clinical Strategies. "With the portal, BMC can more easily verify if patients and employees have received required vaccinations and access specifics such as vaccine lot number should safety problems emerge in the future. In addition, the Fusionfx immunization management portal meets the Immunization Information Systems goals set forth by CDC."

The Fusionfx immunization management portal, which uses the same portal-based infrastructure as the Fusionfx eReferral solution that BMC deployed to manage its physician referral management process, offers both patient search and vaccination history and entry. Clinicians can search a patient by medical record number, name, age or gender. Historical vaccination information is aggregated with the CIE. The clinician can also quickly enter vaccinations administered.

Immunization tracking is top-of-mind in healthcare, not just because of the prevalence of the H1N1 virus. Immunization repositories, such as the one developed by Santa Clara County, California, have the potential to decrease duplicate immunizations, support vaccine recalls and adverse events and introduce and track new vaccines. Moreover, growing numbers of health information exchanges (HIEs), including those in Louisiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York, are investigating immunization surveillance, as are large nations such as China where five percent of the approximately 1.3 billion-strong population are slated to receive the H1N1 vaccine by the end of 2009.

"The Fusionfx immunization management portal can be easily and quickly replicated in hospitals, health systems, integrated delivery networks, public health departments and HIEs," said Andy Hurd, Chairman and CEO of Carefx. "Physician executives, medical directors and materials management professionals will appreciate the value of a tool that can aggregate vaccination information from multiple sources using a common data access format."