HLN Introduces Support for Pfizer COVID Vaccine in its Award Winning ICE Open Source Immunization Forecaster

PALM DESERT, Calif. - Dec. 16, 2020 - PRLog -- On December 15, 2020, HLN released a new version (v1.26.2) of the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) in support of the Pfizer COVID vaccine. ICE is a state-of-the-art open source software system that provides clinical decision support for immunizations for use in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Record (EHR), and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems.

• Version 1.26.2 includes support for new COVID-19 Vaccine Group (with the Pfizer vaccine only).
• A subsequent release, coming soon, will likely add support for the Moderna vaccine.
• The ICE Implementation Guide has also been updated with the new codes COVID-19: CVX, Vaccine Group, Evaluation Focus, and Recommendation Focus codes.  

In addition to support for COVID-19, HLN recently released versions of ICE that includes updated logic for the DTP, Varicella, Hib and MMR vaccine groups (v1.24.2), as well as support for an additional Meningococcal vaccine (v1.25.1).

The full software release is available for download at https://cdsframework.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ICE/pages/18972704/Downloads

Plans for COVID-19 Support in ICE

Once a vaccine has been approved for use by the FDA (either Expanded Access, EUA, or full licensure), the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will hold an emergency meeting and publish recommendations in a very quick time frame (i.e., days). HLN intends to release a version of ICE that includes updated COVID-19 forecasting as early as possible. The initial release will contain COVID-19 logic that is known at the time of the release. As additional, relevant information on COVID-19 becomes available from official sources, HLN will continue to release additional versions of ICE, at appropriate times.

More Information About ICE

The Immunization Calculation Engine, or ICE, is a fully configurable vaccine forecasting/decision support web service tool. Making patient-specific vaccine decisions based on US Government American Council on Immunization Practices (ACIP) clinical recommendations is a very complex task. It requires translating ACIP recommendations - the detailed rules that examine a patient's immunization history and determine if all vaccinations are valid, and what vaccinations might be missing - into computable language for clinical decision support. ICE evaluates a patient's immunization history and generates the appropriate immunization recommendations for the patient. These recommendations are communicated to the clinician at the point of care, as well as the patient, health department or other users.

In developing ICE, HLN worked with the New York City Citywide Immunization Registry (CIR), the Alabama Department of Public Health, and the OpenCDS collaboration which is led by researchers at the University of Utah, Department of Biomedical Informatics. ICE is now in use or being configured for use by several governmental Immunization Information Systems (including in the states of Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont, as well as New York City), electronic health record (EHR) systems (including eClinicalWorks, some Centricity sites, and the Indian Health Service's RPMS), the AZOVA Digital Health Marketplace, and the CareDox personal health record. Other EHRs, personal health record (PHR) systems, and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) can be easily adapted to incorporate ICE logic and clinical decision support into their systems as well.

Please feel free to e-mail ice@hln.com if you have any questions.

About HLN

For more than twenty years HLN has been a leading public health informatics consulting company focused on developing and supporting robust technical solutions addressing pressing public health needs. HLN is dedicated to the development, improvement, promulgation, and use of Open Source solutions in health information technology. Much of our Open Source work is focused on clinical decision support (CDS) applications built using OpenCDS, an open source clinical decision support platform, including our Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) and Reportable Condition Knowledge Management System (RCKMS) which is supporting the national strategy of electronic case reporting to public health. RCKMS is being funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) and deployed centrally to determine if a patient's symptoms and conditions require reporting to one or more public health jurisdictions.

More information on HLN Consulting and its open source products can be found at https://www.hln.com.