Improved interoperability eases immunization tracking at St. John's Health

Susan Freeze, RN, provider applications manager at St. John's Health in Jackson, Wyoming, shares an example from her own healthcare journey. "But with the Oracle Cerner Immunization Registry Reporting and Query technology connected to the EHR, clinicians were able to see I had the vaccine three years ago," she continued. Before the Oracle Cerner technology was set up, St. John's Health clinicians had to log in separately to the Wyoming Immunization Registry to view and record vaccines. If immunizations were given anywhere across the St. John's Health system, someone would need to document that information in both the EHR and the Wyoming Immunization Registry. The Oracle Cerner registry tool electronically sends vaccine data to the Wyoming Immunization Registry and retrieves information from the EHR to reduce manual processes like spreadsheets.

"This interoperable solution works to give patients and clinicians a more complete view of health histories, including immunizations," Freeze noted. "In order to release COVID vaccine shipments to different entities, Wyoming required that all vaccines be reported to the state within 48 hours of administration," Freeze remembered. "We worked with the Cerner team to quickly get everything in place to electronically push these new vaccines to the state registry. "Without the functionality to get those doses recorded in the Wyoming registry within that required 48-hour period, we wouldn't have been able to continue getting shipments, give those second doses and get people vaccinated as quickly as we did," she continued. The time saved for nursing staff as far as manually entering all vaccines administered into state registries is definitely worth it, she added.