Florida SHOTS™: Keeping SHOTS in Check

Only vaccines that are required by Florida law are recorded on a D.H. Form 680. If you would like to see, or give your patients, a complete listing of all of the vaccines they have received, you can print the Florida SHOTS “Immunization History Form,” which will reflect non-required shots such as hepatitis A or HPV vaccine.

Florida SHOTS helps health-care providers, parents and schools maintain and protect the immunization records that protect Florida’s health

August is recognized as National Immunization Awareness Month, an annual event that promotes the benefits and importance of immunizations across the lifespan. Immunization is the most effective, proven method to prevent certain types of illness. Unfortunately, there are still people in the U.S. who die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases.

The month of August is the perfect time to remind parents, caregivers and health-care providers about the importance of knowing they and their charges are up-to-date on immunizations as they prepare for the return to school, college and the upcoming influenza season.

Florida SHOTS recognizes the importance of keeping immunization records safe, updated and accessible and works with health-care providers, schools and childcare centers throughout the state of Florida to simplify record keeping in a free, statewide online registry.

To learn more about Florida SHOTS enrollment and benefits, please visit www.flshots.com or call (877) 888-SHOT.

For access to the latest from your Florida SHOTS team, check out the current issue of the SHOTS Tracker, which is now available online.

In this issue we’re covering how Florida SHOTS is getting national attention, helping Total MD software users utilize data upload, highlighting all our data exchange partners and welcoming one of our newest practices.

SHOTS Tracker – Volume 6, Issue 2 [English]

SHOTS Tracker – Volume 6, Issue 2 [Spanish]

The Florida Department of Health received an award based on their ranking in the National Immunization Survey (NIS). Florida placed second in the nation among all states ranked by percentage of children complete for the 4:3:1:3:3:1 series (4 Dtap, 3 polio, 1 MMR, 3 haemophilus influenzae, 3 hepatitis B, and 1 pnemocococcal conjugate) for the survey conducted in 2008/2009.

The NIS is sponsored by the National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) and conducted jointly by NCIRD and the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The NIS is a list-assisted random-digit-dialing telephone survey followed by a mailed survey to children’s immunization providers that monitor childhood immunization coverage. Since 1994, states have been ranked by NCIRD for high coverage levels by particular vaccination series completion in children age 19 to 35 months.

The significance of high immunization coverage levels is extremely important in the ongoing challenge to ensure that morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable disease incidence remains at an all-time historical low.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, Director NCIRD, CDC; Sherry Riddick, President AIRA; Mara Ohrt (Alaska); Amy Metroka and Dr. Jane Zucker (NYC); Susan Lincicome, Director Florida SHOTS; and Charles Alexander, Bureau Chief of Florida Bureau of Immunization.

The American Immunization Registry Association (AIRA) awarded Florida SHOTS with the 2009 AIRA Center of Excellence (COE) Award during the opening plenary of the 44th National Immunization Conference (NIC) in April. The criteria for this year’s award centered on data reporting, vaccine management and provider participation in immunization information systems (IIS) during the H1N1 2009 influenza epidemic.

Rising to the Challenge
The Florida Department of Health needed to be able to rapidly order and distribute a projected 15 million doses of H1N1 vaccine to an estimated 8,100 ship-to sites. Florida’s IIS, Florida SHOTS, was identified as the only statewide system with the capability to accomplish real-time allocation and ordering of the H1N1 vaccine. By adapting the Florida SHOTS system, we were able to efficiently and quickly use the registry to accomplish these ordering and distribution tasks.

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