Martin's Point Health Care Joins Maine, N.H. Program to Track Children's Immunization Records

ImmPact system allows parents to stay current with their children's shot history

Many parents in Maine and New Hampshire are all too familiar with the last-minute scramble to track down their children's immunization records for the start of school, daycare or camp. Worse, some parents may not even know if their children have received all of the necessary shots to protect against serious illness.

Martin's Point Health Care, Maine's largest not-for-profit primary care practice, has joined a new Internet-based system that helps ease those concerns by allowing doctor's offices quick access to a child's shot history.

The ImmPact Immunization Information System - which was the first Web-based immunization tracking program in the nation - is operated regionally by the Maine Bureau of Health in Augusta and the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services in Concord. It is available to participating practices in Maine and New Hampshire.

"The current vaccination schedule is complex, requiring at least 11 vaccines over a minimum of five visits during the first two years of a child's life," said Nancy Smoak, practice administrator for the Martin's Point location in Windham, Maine, which has about 350 children under the age of 5 in the ImmPact database. "Avoiding confusion can prevent information gaps and under-immunization - and allows us to see what shots are needed to keep children healthy."

Smoak added that ImmPact has another benefit: speeding up access to information. "In the past, patients who called to ask for a vaccination report might have had to wait two or three days," she explained. "Now they can ask for it at the front desk and have a printout within 5 minutes."

Further, ImmPact serves as a tool to automatically remind doctor's offices when children need immunizations. Practices can then print out and mail letters to remind parents when it's time for their child to come in for a shot, Smoak said.

The system may be particularly beneficial for Martin's Point military patients, who often have records in multiple locations. Martin's Point is one of seven designated providers of the Uniformed Services Family Health Plan (USFHP), which provides services to retired military personnel and eligible family members of active-duty and retired military personnel nationwide.

In addition to Windham, the three other Martin's Point locations - in Brunswick and Portland, Maine, and in Portsmouth, N.H. - are expected to be online with ImmPact later this year. Parents have the option to not participate.

So far, the entire two-state database, which taps existing information sources such as Medicaid and electronic birth certificates, has about 500,000 records. The system tracks the types and dates of vaccines, as well as the names of the vaccine providers. It also keeps tabs on the due dates for booster shots and well-child checkups.

"It creates a secure, accessible database that is a one-stop source of complete and accurate immunization information," said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, M.D., director of the Maine Bureau of Health. Mills notes that typical vaccines include Hepatitis B, Hib (Haemophilus Influenzae Type B), DTP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), Polio, Chicken Pox, and MMR (Measles, Mumps Rubella).

She added that despite the region's high vaccination rates for children, up to 15 percent of 2-year-olds are still under-immunized. "ImmPact is an outstanding tool that providers such as Martin's Point Health Care can use to benefit their patients and help protect them from disease," Mills said.

Martin's Point is no stranger to tapping technology to enhance medical services. Last May, it introduced a robot named Spence that assists in dispensing prescriptions, enabling pharmacists to spend more time with their patients. And in 1999, Martin's Point introduced Patients Personal Points, an Internet-based program that allows patients to discuss medical issues with their physicians, request prescription renewals and appointments, and seek and receive health care information, all confidentially with the click of a mouse on their personal computers.

With headquarters in Portland at 331 Veranda St., Martin's Point is a not-for-profit health care organization with facilities in Portland, Brunswick and Windham, Maine, and in Portsmouth, N.H. It has a staff of more than 300 health care professionals and serves 50,000 patients under all major health plans and insurance, including HealthSource, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Harvard Community Health Plan, Aetna, Maine Partners, Cigna, Anthem, Champus and Tricare plans.

Established in 1981, Martin's Point serves patients in the areas of family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, surgery, radiology, cardiology, mammography and other fields. Martin's Point is accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the nation's predominant standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. For additional information, visit online at http://www.martinspoint.org.
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