The NHSN Vaccination Team will be hosting two webinars to review important changes to the surveillance definition of up to date with COVID-19 vaccines. These webinars are geared toward long-term care facilities reporting vaccination data through the NHSN COVID-19 Vaccination Modules.
Key Points:
What are the new recommendations?
- ACIP and CDC provided new recommendations of COVID-19 vaccines for individuals aged 65 years and older.
- Individuals aged 65 years and older are up to date when they have received 2 doses of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine or received 1 dose of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine in the past 4 months.
- There is no change to the up to date definition for individuals younger than 65 years. Therefore, individuals aged less than 65 years are up to date when they have received 1 dose of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine (any time since it was approved in September 2023).
- The new definition applies to both the NHSN Weekly HCP and Resident Vaccination Forms.
- The up to date definition change for individuals aged 65 years and older will occur at the start of Quarter 2 of 2024 (week of April 1 – 7, 2024).
How should facilities report data beginning with Quarter 2 of 2024?
- Residents and healthcare personnel aged 65 and older should NOT be counted as up to date with COVID-19 vaccines until they receive a second dose of the 2023-2024 updated COVID-19 vaccine; or if they have received 1 dose of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine in the past 4 months.
- Be careful not to incorrectly over-report the number of residents who are up to date. Residents aged 65 and older who previously had 1 dose of the 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine greater than 4 months ago, should NOT be counted as up to date (question #2).
- Continue to count residents and healthcare personnel age less than 65 as up to date if they have received 1 dose of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccine.
Webinar dates and registration
Topic: Updates to Weekly COVID-19 Vaccination Data Reporting: Long-term Care Facilities
When: Wednesday, March 27, 2024, 2:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this webinar: https://cdc.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN__F98eZSGSReD3vznNL2tzg
When: Tuesday, April 2, 2024, 2:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Register in advance for this webinar: https://cdc.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_rjHZrnezSaqzTUzZ0jagxQ
After registering, you will receive a confirmation e-mail containing information about joining the webinar. Both webinars will cover the same information.
Questions
Please use NHSN-ServiceNow to submit questions to the NHSN Help Desk. The new portal can be accessed here and should be used in place of nhsn@cdc.gov, nhsntrain@cdc.gov, and nhsndua@cdc.gov. ServiceNow will help the NHSN team respond to your questions faster. Users will be authenticated using CDC’s Secure Access Management Services (SAMS), the same way you access NHSN. If you do not have a SAMS login, or are unable to access ServiceNow, you can still e-mail the NHSN Help Desk at nhsn@cdc.gov.