New Version of HLN's Award Winning Open Source Immunization Forecaster Released

PALM DESERT, Calif. - Aug. 29, 2019 - PRLog -- On August 28, 2019, HLN released a new version (v1.20.1) of the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE). 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.

This version includes important updates to the DTP Vaccine Group including:

• Updated the Adolescent Tdap Recommendation and Evaluation rules as per the latest Tdap guidance included in the 2019 CDC Immunization Schedule.
• Added a rule requiring that in order for the primary series to be complete via the DTP 3-dose series, at least one of the doses administered must be a pertussis-containing vaccine.

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

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.

Among the many useful and advanced features of ICE is that it includes a Clinical Decision Support Administration Tool. This tool enables subject matter experts to manage ICE rules and configuration without the need for software developers. In addition, ICE has maximum flexibility for supporting multiple schedules (for instance a clinical schedule and a school-compliance schedule), a robust testing tool, and can support implementation at any scale. ICE began as a component of public health Immunization Information Systems which gather and consolidate immunization information within a jurisdiction for public health surveillance and clinical support.

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 NJIIS), electronic health record (EHR) systems (including eClinicalWorks), 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.

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.