Historically, it has been the role of local health departments to administer, monitor, and report flu vaccinations of its residents to the state health department. In 2009, the looming threat of an influenza outbreak (H1N1) led to the extension of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP) (1). On June 15, 2009, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, assigned all entities, including organizational and individual, tort liability immunity in the distribution and administration of H1N1 vaccines (1). This extension subsequently impaired local health departments ability to capture accurate estimates of flu immunizations being administered to their respective populations. Stark County Health Department, located in Ohio, in collaboration with Kent State University's College of Public Health, designed, developed, and deployed FITS based on the urgent need of accurate population data regarding influenza immunization at the county level.
Objective
To develop and implement a web-based, county-level flu immunization record keeping system that accurately tracks non-identifiable vaccine recipients and seamlessly uploads to the state record keeping system.