These guides give you quick access to our most frequently asked questions surrounding the following topics:

• Logging in
• Forgotten Password
• Main Menu Functions
• Entering Vaccines (for full-access accounts only)
• D.H. Form 680
• Adding & Deleting Personnel

Quick Tips guides for full-access accounts have been created in English and Spanish as well. A complete user guide and Web-based training can be located under “Customer Support” from the registry’s sidebar menu. You may want to print out a copy of the user guide for easy reference. Free web-based training is available 24 hours a day.

If you’re looking for more extensive information about Florida SHOTS, you can download a copy of our complete user guide, which can be accessed through the Customer Service menu once you have logged into your account, or participate in our Web-based training.

Reminder Recall allows you to sort and store shot records in a variety of ways (e.g., by type of shot) and print patient information on mailing labels to send reminder notices to parents specifying the shot that is due or overdue.

Interested in learning more about how your practice management or EMR software could be set up to upload shot data to the registry? Call 877-888-SHOT for more information.

Web-Based Training:
Florida SHOTS web-based training is always available by logging into your account and selecting it from the Customer Service menu. Our training modules give you step-by-step instructions and screen shots on everything from data entry to reminder recall to assessing immunization levels in your practice.

User Guide:
Everything you ever want to know about Florida SHOTS can be found in the Florida SHOTS User Guide. Available online, think of this as the encyclopedia of Florida SHOTS. The User Guide can be accessed through the Customer Service menu once you have logged into your account. Whenever the Florida SHOTS system is updated or the functionality expanded, the User Guide is updated to cover the changes.

Quick Tips Guide:
Available in both English and Spanish, the Florida SHOTS Quick Tips guide is a handy reference for how to’s. Topics include logging in, forgotten password, the main menu, entering vaccinations in the registry, 680s, and adding and deleting personnel. This guide is always available as a pdf at www.flshots.com on the training page.

Blog:
The Florida SHOTS blog is an up-to date resource for useful information about the registry. Topics cover current news about benefits, blue cards, data upload, inactive accounts, updates, and training.

Forum:
Get advice from other Florida SHOTS users on the Florida SHOTS forum. Chat about summary reports, electronically certifying 680s, incorporating Florida SHOTS into your daily routine and anything else on your mind. Register (for free, of course) at www.flshotusers.com/forum and start talking today.

Live Help Desk:
A Florida SHOTS representative is available Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Eastern to help you with any Florida SHOTS questions or concerns. (877) 888-SHOT (7468)

If they are paper records, they are subject to water and fire loss. Electronic records are only better if your system has an offsite backup storage that remains secure during the disaster. Remote backups ensure that the records will be there for your office once it is back up and running, but they do not guarantee access for your patients who may be forced to evacuate to other parts of the state or even the US.

The only way to protect your immunization records and keep them available for all your patients regardless of where they go is to store those records in Florida SHOTS, a free, statewide, Web-based immunization registry. This was borne out in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when soon after the storm, Florida’s registry could access the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama state registries.

With this access, the help desk offered assistance for looking up immunization records for evacuees. Florida SHOTS’ staff received and responded to hundreds of inquiries from health departments, private providers, and schools and found many immunization records for children displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Millions Saved in Vaccine and Admin Fees
“The Success of an Immunization Information System in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina” by Julie A. Boom, MD, Anna C. Dragsbaek, JD, and Cynthia S. Nelson, MPH, published in Pediatrics, Volume 119, Number 6, June 2007, looked at the benefits of immunization information systems (IIS) in the Houston area following Hurricane Katrina.

According to the article’s abstract, “within days after Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, the Houston-Harris County Immunization Registry was connected to the Louisiana Immunization Network for Kids Statewide. This linkage provided immediate access to the immunization records of children who were forced to evacuate the New Orleans, Louisiana area. One year later, 18,900 immunization records have been found, representing an estimated cost savings of more than $1.6 million for vaccine alone and $3.04 million for vaccine plus administration fees. This experience demonstrated the vital and previously unrecognized functionality of immunization information systems in a public health emergency.”

“In the immediate days after this devastating event, 200,000 evacuees from the greater New Orleans area headed for Houston, Texas. Most evacuees arrived with few personal belongings. Needless to say, most children’s immunizations records were left at home.”

“To assist public health officials in searching for children’s immunization records, the Web-based immunization registry was made available to providers in the makeshift medical clinics in the Astrodome and George R. Brown Convention Center. Health care workers at these shelters were able to readily access records for children by using the HHCIR-LINKS connection.”

Be Prepared
Hurricanes are a fact of life in Florida. Please join us in being prepared should disaster—natural or manmade—strike our state. If you’re not already enrolled in Florida SHOTS, enrollment is free. If you are enrolled, please ensure that you input shots in the registry either manually or through automated data upload so that those records are protected.

For more information about the registry, enrollment, usage, or data upload, please call 877-888-SHOT (7468) or visit www.flshots.com. Together, we can work to protect our children from vaccine-preventable diseases and safeguard their shot records from unforeseen disaster.

Good continuity of care requires knowing what vaccinations a child has received. Florida SHOTS™ offers many benefits to participating hospitals:

• Provides additional information with regard to differential diagnoses for vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs)
• Improves quality of care and risk management by allowing access to a patient’s immunization record during hospital visits
• Facilitates the implementation of standing orders for vaccination by allowing the capability to check immunization status (e.g., standing order for influenza vaccine during influenza season; standing order for Td vaccination for ER patients with deep or dirty wounds; standing order for pneumococcal vaccination)
• Facilitates diagnoses of rash illness by vaccination status check
• Facilitates emergency management for natural or other disasters by making vaccination records available for triage (e.g., bioterrorist event involving a vaccine-preventable disease)

• Florida SHOTS data upload technology offers a simple batching linkage from your existing billing, practice management, or EMR software to the statewide immunization registry.
• It allows pharmacists to automatically upload shot records, avoiding manual data entry and saving hours of time.
• Florida SHOTS has successfully implemented data upload linkages with multiple medical software companies, managed care organizations, health systems, and private physicians practices for the past two years.
• We have the expertise to create a data upload linkage with your corporation’s software so that you can easily comply with the reporting requirements of your adult influenza vaccination program.

Infants are more likely to suffer complications, or even death, if they contract a vaccine-preventable disease. For example, measles is the number one vaccine-preventable disease that kills infants worldwide.

Florida SHOTS is a tool that can be used to increase immunization levels thereby helping the entire community because increased immunization levels offer better protection for all children. The registry does this by identifying under-immunized children.

Florida SHOTS helps parents by:

• Consolidating all immunization records for any vaccinations that a child has received from multiple health-care providers
• Providing an accurate, official copy of a child’s immunization history for personal, day care, school, or camp entry requirements
• Maintaining a system-certified electronic 680 (once created by a participating health-care provider) which is accessible directly to schools, licensed child-care centers and other medical providers that are Florida SHOTS users
• Helping ensure that a child’s immunizations are up to date
• Providing reminders or recalls when an immunization is due or has been missed
• Helping ensure timely immunization for children whose families move or switch health-care providers
• Preventing unnecessary duplicative immunization
• Allowing emergency room access to a patient’s immunization status

Busy practices have found that Florida SHOTS can assist them in the challenges of assessing ever-changing and complex immunization requirements and schedules involving different vaccine manufacturers and combination vaccines.

Florida SHOTS was designed with functionality that provides the following benefits to providers.

• Immunization records from all providers are consolidated into one record per patient.
• Immunization information is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
• The registry provides a reliable immunization history for any child, whether a new or continuing patient.
• It identifies patients’ previously reported contraindications.
• The registry provides definitive information, reminders and recalls on immunizations that are due or overdue.
• The registry produces the legal immunization record (DH Form 680) required for school, camp, and day care center attendance.
• It allows providers to create a system-certified electronic 680, which is kept in Florida SHOTS where it is accessible directly to schools, licensed child-care centers and other medical providers that are Florida SHOTS users.
• It generates immunization reports for managed-care organizations.
• The registry reduces paperwork by automating inventory, reporting, recall and reminder functions.
• It provides current recommendations and information on new vaccines.
• The registry facilitates introduction of new vaccines or changes in the vaccine schedule.