PHSC October 5, 2023 meeting - follow up

PHSC Terms of Reference: thanks Bev and Lori for providing your input on the Forum. We have taken these suggestions (and those from our last PHSC call) and they are reflected in the revised Terms of Reference that will be shared on tomorrow's call. Looking forward to the discussion.

Good morning,

Thank you for restarting this work and for the opportunity to continue to participate in the group! It is great to hear so many familiar voices as Bev mentioned!

My comments related to ToR:
The ToR really is focused on the SNOMED CT however, there are other very important data elements and aspects that we utilize in Ontario and other jurisdictions that will be missed if this group is only looking at SNOMED CT. As this landscape of immunization administration has changed over the Pandemic with many more players starting to administer vaccines.
Things like mapping (agent/antigen/disease or Tradename/Agent/Antigen/Disease, DIN, CVX codes, Public tradename, and HCP tradename) what is the plan for that? Where does all of this fit in? The landscape has changed so much and it is important and I am worried that we are missing some important aspects and not sure where they will land.
Also wondering if mention of the National Vaccine Catalogue (NVC) work that PHAC is planning should be mentioned as this group and that work should be closely tied to ensure that nothing is missed.

Looking forward to seeing how this work and the NVC work is connected to ensure that the jurisdictional needs are met.

Thanks,
Lori

Hi
thankyou for re-starting discussions in this community and so nice to hear so many new and familiar voices.

Here are my comments regarding the proposed TOR:
The public health community has this overview on InfoCentral that describes it's focus - "Building knowledge and collaborating on public health solutions to improve the electronic sharing and use of immunization and communicable disease information." The title of the TOR is - "Public Health Surveillance Community (PHSC) Terms of Reference". It does NOT say that the community TOR is focusing only on Immunization but the scope is clearly immunization. I would suggest clarifying the TOR to add that the focus is "Immunization Data" and adding an out of scope section to exclude communicable disease for now. If there is agreement on this change there is other wording throughout that will need editing as well. I do hope that there is an opportunity for discussions on communicable disease in the future, particularly since there is a linkage to immunization data.

The TOR really appears to be focusing on supporting SNOMED and CVC content which I understand is needed, but I would like to see something like the following be added to the scope section (green text):
The scope for the PHSC with regards to Immunization data includes new and revised SNOMED CT CA encoded immunization related content and subsets required to support provincial / territorial / jurisdictional immunization registries and digital health projects. This includes the requirements to support immunization record keeping, adverse events following immunization (AEFI) reporting, immunization status and vaccine inventory management.

I look forward to further discussions and hearing/ participating in the PHAC plans for a vaccine catalogue.

Regards
Beverly

Thanks for the enthusiastic participation on today's kick-off call! PHSC Meeting Slides October 5, 2023 are posted on the Forum.

Follow up item:
The PHSC Draft ToR (Terms of Reference) are also on the Forum. As discussed, please share your input, either via the Forum or email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.), by Thursday, October 26th. We will share an update at November's call.