BACKGROUND
Clients in distress
When the pandemic hit, public health agencies were faced with overwhelming challenges. As their staff shifted to working at home with all that is implied (children, barking dogs, sick and dying family, and friends) they had to plan for understanding and fighting the pandemic. A collapsing economy also stressed the tax base of most jurisdictions causing short-term economic turmoil within the government as well.
HLN has been a virtual company since its inception nearly twenty-five years ago. The sudden lockdown of the pandemic had little effect on company operations, positioning HLN to assist its public health clients and sharing experience and expertise with the broader public health and healthcare communities.
APPROACH
Stepping up
Much of HLN’s funded project work shifted to COVID-related activity. Immunization Information System (IIS) project prepared for the management of data around the largest vaccination campaign in US history with new requirements from CDC for healthcare provider enrollment (see VPAS) and data submission to CDC. Work escalated on the CDC Immunization Gateway project with HLN helping to support IIS projects across the country. Use of the HLN-developed Reportable Conditions Knowledge Management System (RCKMS) to submit COVID case reports to public health increased exponentially as nearly 10,000 clinical sites are now using it.
Throughout this period HLN has continued to contribute to the community by writing nearly thirty posts in its blog. HLN began following the vaccine credential arena very closely and participates actively through its membership in the Vaccine Credential Initiative (VCI) and the COVID Credentials Initiative (CCI). HLN speakers were featured in several national forums including HIMSS21, the AIRA 2021 National Meeting, and the 2021 ONC Tech Forum. HLN is also a major contributor to the BPM+ COVID-19 “Placemat” Project which will provide access to COVID-19 related resources on the Internet using a unique “spider diagram” visualization.
RESOURCES
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