Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) — whose mission is to assess, protect and promote the health, environment and well-being of Southern Nevada communities, residents and visitors —streamlined its vaccination processes, allowing constituents to register for all immunization services online. This project was done in collaboration with the Nevada State Department of Health and Human Services (NVHHS).
Impact
This project helped the district consolidate vaccination efforts into one system. Previously, different systems had to be used for COVID-19 vaccines and other vaccines. Nurses can now administer multiple vaccines within the same visit and ask appropriate screening questions, saving time for themselves and constituents. The application also supports targeted vaccination campaigns depending on the need of our community.
The application leverages Salesforce’s cloud-based platform. The system lets clinicians add historical and administered vaccine records. Records are sent to the State Immunization Registry via HL7 messages in real time, allowing constituents to have complete shot records.
The application gives constituents access to all vaccine-related information in one place. Constituents can create a new appointment by selecting a route to the specific vaccine they’re looking for. The site has help available for different fields if residents need additional information. Phone and walk-in appointments can still be made as well.
Advice
The district emphasizes the following factors:
- Project management. The project required solid management with all entities and vendors. A focus on high-priority items, budget and delivery dates is essential.
- Collaboration. This project involved numerous public health entities in Nevada. Scheduled times to meet regularly with all entities is important to make sure all parties are in the loop.
- Testing. When changes are made, they often affect other areas that may get overlooked. Bugs can be avoided with quality testing by the vendor and detailed testing scripts for user acceptance testing (UAT). Make sure UAT signoff is obtained prior to each release.
- Training. After new features and bug fixes are released, proper training needs to be provided to all users. Periodic refresher trainings are also necessary as staff moves in and out of positions. Identify one or two super users to properly train everyone.
- Funding. Adequate funding is needed for a project of this magnitude. Stakeholder buy-in ensures that leadership will allocate appropriate funding to continuously improve and maintain the software.
