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First published August 21, 2007 as JAMIA PrePrint; doi:10.1197/jamia.M2232
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2007;14(6):731-735
© 2007 American Medical Informatics Association


A more recent version of this article appeared on November 1, 2007
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Submitted on July 31, 2006
Accepted on July 26, 2007

Using Electronic Medical Records to Enhance Detection and Reporting of Vaccine Adverse Events

Virginia L. Hinrichsen MS, MPH1*, Benjamin Kruskal MD1, Megan A. O'Brien MPH1, Tracy A. Lieu MD, MPH1, and Richard Platt MD, MSc2

Affiliation of the authors: 1 Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, MA; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, Boston, MA ; 2 (for the Vaccine Safety Datalink Team), Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Boston, MA; Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, Boston, MA

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

We implemented an automated vaccine adverse event surveillance and reporting system based in an ambulatory electronic medical record to improve underreporting and incomplete reporting that prevails in spontaneous systems. This automated system flags potential vaccine adverse events for the clinician when a diagnosis is entered, prompts clinicians to consider the vaccine as a cause of the condition, and facilitates reporting of suspected adverse events to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). During five months, a total of 33,420 vaccinations were administered during 14,466 encounters. There were 5,914 follow-up contacts by vaccinees within 14 days of the vaccination visits; 686 (11.6%) generated an alert. Clinicians submitted VAERS reports for 23 of these (0.69 per 1,000 vaccine doses), which is almost 6 times the dose-based reporting rate to VAERS [1]. Clinician surveys indicated that it took a minimal amount of time to respond to the alerts. Of those who felt that an alert corresponded to an actual vaccine adverse event, the majority used the reporting feature to file a VAERS report. We believe that elicited surveillance via real time prompts to clinicians holds substantial promise. By coupling simplified reporting with the initial prompt, clinicians can consider and report a vaccine adverse event electronically in a few moments during the office visit.







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