Florida SHOTS™: Keeping SHOTS in Check

With another school year approaching and stacks of 680 requests, Florida SHOTS is reminding healthcare providers to keep immunization records up-to-date and easily accessible through Florida SHOTS online immunization registry. Florida SHOTS offers a manageable solution to doctor’s offices faced with back-to-school 680 requests as it allows registered healthcare providers, schools and childcare centers, and parents quick access to printable and electronically certified DH Form 680s (now accepted on plain paper!).
Florida SHOTS provides the following benefits for physicians:

• Prints a 680 in 27 seconds compared to the 2 ½ minutes required to write a blue form by hand
• Provides a reliable immunization history for any child, whether a new or continuing patient
• Produces the legal immunization record (DH Form 680) required for school, camp and day care center attendance and creates a system-certified electronic copy accessible to schools, childcare centers, and parents
• Identifies patients’ previously reported contraindications
• Provides definitive information on immunizations that are due or overdue
• Reduces paperwork by automating reporting as well as recall and reminder functions

Parents accessing the certified Form 680 from the Florida SHOTS website are required to enter the Certification PIN and State IMM Id found on an information sheet produced by the registry.

You have the option to create a PIN each time you e-sign a certified Form 680. You can choose to create both the PIN and the certified 680 at the same time or not create a PIN at all for a certified 680. (Your office will have up to 10 days to certify a 680 once you’ve created the PIN. PINs continue to work for parent login for as long as the 680 is valid.) When you select the option to create a pin, Florida SHOTS generates the information sheet with the Certification PIN and State Imm Id for you to give to the parent.

For more information, see the Setting Up Patient Shot Record Retrieval or Configurar la Recuperación del Registro de Inmunizatión del Paciente guides. You can also visit the parent login page.

At the beginning of the day, this pediatric practice manually enters shots for those not in Florida SHOTS. The office uses Noteworthy EMR for data upload.

Parents of new patients must come to their first visits with a shot record. If they don’t have the record, then they have to come back for any needed shots. Brittney is responsible for getting the records, and she tells parents to call the school for the records if the parents don’t have them. However, if the parent can’t get the record from the school, Brittney has to fax a medical release form to the previous doctor for the records. It takes 1 to 3 days to receive the information back from the other doctor’s office.

This office uses Florida SHOTS to get other providers’ records, add their records in (from shots given at their office), and print blue forms. If the child is up-to-date for their shots, they will go ahead and certify the record in Florida SHOTS, because it takes no additional time to certify it.

They try to upload files at least every 2 weeks. Even though they are in the registry daily, data upload still saves them time.

Parents sometimes need multiple copies of shot records. Additionally, if someone makes a mistake hand writing the 680, the whole form has to be rewritten.

For more information, see the Time Savings Study flyer or watch the Race for the Records: Paper vs. Florida SHOTS video.

As part of their new patient process, office staff access Florida SHOTS and print the patient’s immunization history to be part of the chart (even if the history is empty). Patients get entered into Florida SHOTS on their first visit. The doctor wants to know if they’re in the registry and whether they have shots in there. According to Linda, “Dr. Berger trusts Florida SHOTS over any records the patients bring.”

Office staff keep the charts to the side until the end of the day and then enter all shots that were given that day. If a patient needs to take an updated shot card with them, the shots are entered while the patient is there so that they don’t have to return for the 680.

Staff assess Florida SHOTS and the vaccine administration record in the chart to determine what shots have been given. If a parent says that the child went to the health department for a shot, staff look in the registry for that prior to giving any shots.

If a patient comes in without a record, staff look in Florida SHOTS first. If the patient is not in the system, staff have to contact the other doctor for the shots. The doctor won’t give shots without a shot record.

They see an average of 40 to 50 patients per day, and about 50% of them get shots.

Staff refer to the registry all the time to see what shots patients are due for or what’s overdue.

At triage, if a patient is behind on his or her shots on the chart and the mom says that the child got shots at the health department, then they print the Florida SHOTS immunization history page. They transfer that information to the office shot record.

About 20% of patients need multiple copies of their 680s, e.g., for school and daycare. Additionally, children need an updated blue form at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 12 months, 15 months, 18 months, 4 years old, and 12 years old. They also need a blue form once per year for daycare.

Staff always certify the records when they put them in.

According to Linda, the computer makes you more astute with details because it catches mistakes. For example, if you misspell a name, you won’t find it in the system. If you have an incorrect date of birth, the VIS date is incorrect, or the wrong date is on a shot, the computer won’t accept it, so it makes staff much more accurate. (For example, it highlighted their patient that day that missed a booster, so when she comes back in, they will give it to her.) Humans often make mistakes that the computer won’t allow to be made, so Florida SHOTS is more accurate.

For more information on how Florida SHOTS can save you time, see the Time Savings Study Flyer, or watch the Race for the Records: Paper vs. Florida SHOTS video.

1. Median time to hand write a blue form is 2½ minutes. Double that if a patient needs one for school and daycare. Updates also must be written at 2 months, 4 months, 6 months, 12 months, 15 months, 18 months, 4 years old, and 12 years old. Alternatively, you can use Florida SHOTS to search for, electronically certify, and print a 680 in less than a minute.
2. It takes 2 1/2 minutes to write out a 680 form but only 27 seconds to certify and print an accurate, up-to-date 680 form from Florida SHOTS. This saves an average of 2 minutes for each patient that needs a duplicate or updated 680.
3. Data upload allows you to batch and transmit an unlimited number of patient immunization records to the Florida SHOTS secure database in less than 4 minutes.
4. By using Florida SHOTS for a typical patient visit rather than hand writing a 680, you save on average 10 hours per 1,000 patient immunization visits. (This includes time spent using Florida SHOTS to search for the patient’s immunization history, adding missing historical data, adding that day’s shots, certifying, and printing records.)

• 10 RN hours = $247.20*
• 10 LPN hours = $174.60*
• 10 certified nurse assistant hours = $105.80*
• 10 administrative/office manager hours = $144.40*

*Cost savings are calculated based on the median hourly rate by job for the state of Florida, 2/15/09, and do not include overhead and benefits costs associated with staff.

For more information on how Florida SHOTS can save you time, see the Time Savings Study Flyer or watch the Race for the Records: Paper vs. Florida SHOTS video.