New Childhood Immunization Status Report offered in PCC Practice Vitals Dashboard

In 2007, PCC's Practice Vitals Dashboard web-based reporting tool offered the basics. In a nutshell, clients could log-in to see and compare their practices' revenue and sick-to-well visit ratio with that of other pediatric practices.

Three years later, the Dashboard's menu of reports on pediatric benchmarks has grown from basics to bells-and-whistles. In the past year, 60 percent of PCC's clients have logged in, at least once, to view an expanded offering of clinical measurements, including well-visits and asthma reporting.

The Dashboard's newest quality measurement, called the Childhood Immunization Status, reports on the percentage of patients who have had the CDC-recommended immunizations by their second birthday. The measurement was highlighted at this month's AAP National Conference and Exhibition in San Francisco.

Introduced about a month ago, the immunization page shows a practice how many patients are up-to-date on vaccinations, how many are behind, and provides a list of patients who were not up-to-date by their second birthday.

As with other Dashboard measurements, the immunization page includes a concise graphical display that shows how a practice's immunization status measures up to its peers, and to established pediatric benchmarks.

While all Dashboard's measurements are derived exclusively from PCC-Partner data and can be accessed individually through PCC's system, pediatricians are often pressed for time and prefer reviewing an overall snapshot of their practice's vital statistics.

“We want to get more practices to use the Dashboard,” said Tim Proctor, a consultant with PCC's Pediatric Solutions Team. “Pediatricians are curious how they're doing compared to other practices, and they want tools to make their work easier.”

Clients who log-in to Dashboard will find the immunization report categorized under “Meaningful Use Criteria – Clinical Quality Measures.” From now on, said Proctor, additions to Dashboard's measurements, such as the immunization page, will be developed with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's health stimulus incentive funding in mind.

For  a practice to potentially receive any of the projected $19.2 billion earmarked for advancing Electronic Health Records, it must have certified electronic health records and must prove “meaningful use” of those systems. Among the measurements required by Medicare and Medicaid to prove “meaningful use,” is the Childhood Immunization Status quality measure and the ability to electronically record, retrieve and transmit immunization information to immunization registries.

“When I think of new reports to show on the Dashboard, the ARRA measurements are a very important piece of that,” Proctor said. “For pediatricians trying to prove meaningful use, this is some of the information they'll need to report,” said Proctor.

Regardless of a practice's intention to seek meaningful use incentives, putting to use the Dashboard's immunization report will augment your practice's system capabilities and can serve as a foundation for increasing immunization rates.