HLN Learnings  Newsletter
HLN Participates in Public Health Conferences
Over the past several months, HLN participated in several major public health-related conferences, including:

2 018 OSEHRA Summit: HLN  joined colleagues from the Immunization Working Group for an update of the groups activities, including an  update  about HLN’s  ICE  Open Source Immunization Evaluation and Forecasting System.

2018 AIRA National Meeting: HLN presented or co-presented nine sessions at this conference which brought together more than 350 informatics professionals, public health officials, EHR vendors, and other stakeholders who all care passionately about Immunization Information Systems (IIS) and their role in the healthcare community. HLN delivered a strong Open Source message at this conference (see blog ).

CDC/NACCHO Public Health Informatics Conference: HLN presented or co-presented five sessions at this conference . Nearly 1,000 public health informatics professionals, vendors, and other stakeholders came together to discuss and learn from each other about new and emerging trends in informatics practice, successful (and less than successful) projects and strategies, and new or existing products to help in their work. The conference exhibit space included a mini- Interoperability Showcase  co-sponsored by  HIMSS  that demonstrated ten interoperability use cases relevant to public health and their data partners in the clinical community - HLN participated in two of the use cases (Immunization, and Electronic Case Reporting which seemed to be the highlight of the conference - see blog ).
Dr. Noam Arzt awarded AIRA Volunteer Service Award at 2018 National Meeting in Salt Lake City  - see details
Update to ICE Open Source Immunization Forecasting Software
A new release (v 1.14.1 ) of the Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) was issued over the past few month and is now available ( download ICE now! ). ICE is a state-of-the-art open-source software system that provides clinical decision support (CDS) for immunizations for use in Immunization Information Systems (IIS), Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Personal Health Record (PHR) Systems. The release completes support for  Earliest Date and Overdue Date  for all vaccine series in ICE’s default schedule.
HLN Comments on Two CMS Notices of Proposed Rulemaking
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has now released a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to address proposed changes for Year 3 of MIPS, the provider (as opposed to hospital) side of the Quality Payment Program. HLN authored a blog published by HIMSS and submitted formal comments .

In addition, CMS released the 2019 Inpatient Prospective Payment System  Final Rule  to Quality Payment Program. It is clear from the comments discussed in the final rule that comments submitted supporting public health requirements were received, noted, and had a positive impact on the final rule. Kudos to public health advocates for their strong voice! See HLN's blog and formal comments on the original NPRM.