Since spring is approaching, we want to remind healthcare facilities about the Colorado Board of Health (BOH)rule 6 CCR 1011-1 Chap 2 regarding influenza vaccination of HCWs in licensed health care facilities. This rule requires health care facilities to report data their facility-specific data each spring. The requirement for 2014-2015 is to have at least 90% of your employees immunized with the influenza vaccine.
To report these data, you can use either the Colorado Health Facility Portal (state portal) or the National Health Safety Network (NHSN). Data should be submitted through only one of these systems.
Reporting parameters are listed below for each tool to report your 2014-2015 data.
HF Portal:
- When to count employees for denominator: October 1, 2014 – December 31, 2014
- Days employees must work to be counted in the denominator: 30 days
- Deadline to submit data through portal: March 31, 2015
NHSN:
- When to count employees for denominator: October 1, 2014 – March 31, 2015
- Days employees must work to be counted in the denominator: 1 day
- Deadline to submit data through NHSN: May 15, 2015
Important: Acute care hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, and outpatient dialysis facilities already using NHSN to report state reportable infections or HCW flu vaccination data for Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement should only report their data once through NHSN. HCW flu vaccination data reported into NHSN for Centers for Medicaid and Medicare fulfills state flu data reporting requirements.
Note: If you already report HCW flu vaccination data through NHSN, please ensure that you have joined the Colorado Influenza Reporting Group. This can be down as follows:
1. In NHSN, left hand blue navigation bar, click Group and Join
2. Enter 27648 for both the group id and joining password
3. Click Join Group
4. At Confer Rights page, scroll to the bottom of page and hit accept.
If you have trouble accessing the portal or reporting your data through it, please call Licensure Customer Assistance at 303-692-2836. For other questions regarding the rule, please call Tamara Hoxworth at 303-692-2930 or Erica Bloom at 303-692-2789.
Additional resources can be found by visiting https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdphe/categories/services-and-information/health/prevention-and-wellness/immunization and clicking on the Policy and Board of Health Rules tab.
This blog publishes information typically sent to users of the Colorado Health Facilities Interactive (COHFI) system for health care entities regulated by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Please note that COHFI is the official medium for business communication between the Department and licensed and/or Medicare/Medicaid certified health care entities. Health care entities should continue to monitor their email accounts routinely.
