Jurisdiction
North Dakota
Strategy
Develop a streamlined provider enrollment process that could easily export data for required CDC reporting while minimizing staff time required.
Challenge
In October 2020, immunization programs began enrolling immunization providers to receive and administer the COVID-19 vaccine once it was made available. While the CDC guided information needed from providers, it was up to the jurisdictions to enroll their providers and report information back to the CDC. It was also the responsibility of the jurisdictions to ensure that their provider sites were enrolled in VTrck5, the CDC’s vaccine ordering system.
Solution
The North Dakota Department of Health began the enrollment streamlining process by creating an online survey that captured required provider information from all providers across the state, not just those participating in Phase 1A of the vaccine roll-out. Capturing all the data upfront allowed for a swifter process in later phases. Further, all providers were required to watch a recorded training presentation covering program expectations. The North Dakota Department of Health staff manually verified completion of both the survey and training presentation.
However, after the enrollment survey was created and sent out, it was revealed that the data file format used to capture data in the survey differed from the format the CDC required for submission through the VTrck5 system. A data flag (a marker used to differentiate between data groups) was required by VTrck5, which was not included in IIS or other data collected thus far. To avoid delays and excessive manual data entry from staff, an SAS code combined all required provider information from the enrollment survey and IIS and the needed data flag into a new file that VTrck5 would accept. This approach drastically streamlined the reporting process for North Dakota Department of Health staff.
This program practice did not require any extra funding or outside partners as the present staff had the skill set needed to implement the project.
Outcome
As a result of this project, North Dakota Department of Health staff had minimal manual work to provide the CDC with the needed enrollment information. Further, providers were given a convenient way to enter ordering information. This provider enrollment process is still used today.