In February 2012, the Colorado Board of Health (BOH) passed rule 6 CCR 1011-1 Chapter 2 regarding influenza vaccination of employees in licensed healthcare facilities. Healthcare facilities are required to report data each spring. For the 2015-2016 influenza season, at least 90% of your employees should be immunized with the influenza vaccine.
To report these data, you can use either the Colorado Health Facility Portal (HF Portal) or the National Health Safety Network (NHSN). Data should be submitted through ONLY ONE of these systems. You DO NOT need to report into both systems. Reporting to either system will meet the state reporting requirement.
Reminder: If a facility has its own license and location, it must report separately, even if affiliated with a single hospital (i.e., Children's Hospital, University Hospital) home health agency, assisted living, or nursing home corporation that has multiple sites. When a hospital or other facility type has multiple locations, those locations are licensed individually and therefore, should report separately. Agencies that have separately licensed facility types, even if the same location, should report separately. Examples are a nursing home and assisted living residence at the same address, or a hospice and a home health agency at the same address. There are some health agencies that have separate licenses based on different functions but are in the same location with the same staff and these facilities may report only once.
Reporting parameters are listed below for each tool to report your 2015-2016 data.
HF Portal:
- Timeframe to count employees for denominator: October 1, 2015 - December 31, 2015.
- Minimum number of days employees must work to be counted in denominator: 1 day (New Reporting Criteria - This is a change from the previous policy that required counting personnel who had worked at a facility for 30 days or more. The change was made to align with federal criteria that apply to facilities who report through the NHSN).
- Deadline to submit data through the HF Portal: March 31, 2016.
- If there are problems submitting your data through the Internet Explorer browser, you may use the following URL:https://www.hfemsd4.dphe.state.co.us/hfportal/hfstart.aspx.
- If you have trouble accessing the portal or reporting your data, please call Licensure Customer Assistance at 303-692-2836.
NHSN:
- Timeframe to count employees for denominator: October 1, 2015 - March 31, 2016.
- Minimum number of days employees must work to be counted in denominator: 1 day.
- Deadline to submit data through portal: May 15, 2016.
- If you have trouble accessing NHSN or reporting your data, please call 1-866-800-8756 or send an email toNHSN@cdc.gov and in the subject line include "2015 - 2016 HCW Flu Reporting."
Important: Acute care hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers, outpatient dialysis facilities, and inpatient psychiatric facilities already using NHSN to report state reportable infections or HCW influenza vaccination data for Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement should only report their data once through NHSN. HCW influenza vaccination data reported into NHSN, as required by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, also fulfills state influenza vaccination reporting requirements.
Note: If you report HCW influenza vaccination data through NHSN, please ensure that you have joined the Colorado Influenza Reporting Group. This can be down as follows:
1. In NHSN, use the 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 the Confer Rights page, scroll to the bottom of page and hit accept.
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.
For other questions regarding the rule, please call Tamara Hoxworth at 303-692-2930 or Erica Bloom at 303-692-2789.
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.
