REMINDER: ANNUAL HEALTH CARE WORKER INFLUENZA VACCINATION REPORTING IS REQUIRED

 

TO: All Licensed Healthcare Facilities in Colorado FROM: Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) 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 2020-2021 influenza season, at least 90% of your employees should be immunized with the influenza vaccine. To report these data, you can use the National Health Safety Network (NHSN) or a new reporting tool that will be made available through the Health Facility Division this spring. Data should be submitted through only one of these electronic systems. Reporting to either system will meet state influenza vaccination reporting requirements. 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) or home health, 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. Home health agencies may have separate licenses based on different functions but are in the same location with the same staff so these facilities would report only once.  Reporting parameters are listed below for the 2020 – 2021 influenza season. Timeframe to count employees for denominator: October 1, 2020 – March 31, 2021. Minimum number of days employees must work to be counted in denominator: 1 day. Deadline to submit data: May 15, 2021. If you will be reporting through NHSN and have trouble accessing it, please send an email to NHSN@cdc.gov and in the subject line include “2020 – 2021 HCW Flu Reporting.” Important: Any facility already using NHSN to report state reportable infections or HCW influenza vaccination data should only report their data once through NHSN. HCW influenza vaccination data reported into NHSN, 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 and conferred rights; otherwise your data cannot be seen/accessed by the CDPHE. This can be down as follows: In NHSN, use the left hand blue navigation bar, click Group and Join Enter 27648 for both the group id and joining password Click Join Group 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/board-health-rule-influenza-immunization.   For questions regarding the rule, please email Erica Bloom at Erica.Bloom@state.co.us.