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• DUA at a glance
• DUA user guidance
• MIIC administrator – what do we mean?
• Monitor ACKs/data exchange feeds
• What can you do with the ‘mange my account’ function? Here are some tips!
• Provider spotlight: Victoria Standley, Sanford Health

DUA at a glance

The MIIC Data Use Agreement (DUA) is a legal agreement that all organizations must sign prior to gaining access to MIIC. The DUA describes appropriate uses of MIIC, security and confidentiality requirements, and standards for addressing inappropriate data privacy incidents.

DUAs must be renewed every three years. Of organizations with an active status in MIIC, 733 have a DUA that will expire in the next three months.

Email notifications are sent to the persons identified as the authorized representative of the organization the last time the DUA was signed. Your organization should double check who the authorized representative of your organization is to know who should be signing the DUA on behalf of your organization. The authorized representative should be someone who is authorized to sign legal documents on behalf of an organization. You can email the MIIC help desk at health.miichelp@state.mn.us to see who previously signed your organizations DUA.

If you are the authorized representative of your organization, take the following steps to help ensure your organization is prepared to renew the DUA:

1. Look out for an email about your organization’s DUA expiring soon. If you’ve had a recent change in email address, notify the MIIC Help Desk at health.miichelp@state.mn.us.
2. Check your copy of the DUA that was downloaded after signing and note the date it was signed. A new DUA will need to be signed three years after the current DUA was signed.
3. If your organization has multiple locations and signs a multi-facility DUA, double check that the facilities spreadsheet is accurate and up to date.

Re-signing the DUA in a timely manner will ensure your organization’s access to MIIC is uninterrupted. The authorized representative can contact the Minnesota Immunization Information Connection (MIIC) help desk at health.miichelp@state.mn.us if they have any questions about the DUA.

DUA user guidance

Does your MIIC (DUA) expire soon? To avoid any delays, please renew your MIIC DUA early. Data privacy, security, and data quality are top priorities for MIIC. Organizations must complete and submit a MIIC DUA before being set up in MIIC, and every three years while participating, as a commitment to upholding these priorities. Your organization’s MIIC DUA must be active to access MIIC. 

The authorized representative of your organization must complete the MIIC DUA Attestation online. After submitting the DUA, you will receive a confirmation email. The MIIC help desk will contact you to confirm enrollment and provide login information for new users within five business days. If you don’t know when your DUA expires, email the MIIC help desk at health.miichelp@state.mn.us with your organization code and we will let you know.

MIIC administrator – what do we mean?

When an organization signs the MIIC DUA, they agree to designate a MIIC administrator and notify that person of the designation on page 2 of the Data Use Agreement for Participating in the Minnesota Immunization Information Connection (MIIC). Administrators are responsible for setting and maintaining user accounts for staff at each location. Visit Managing Users for more information. All users that need access to MIIC under an organization will be directed to the MIIC administrator first. The administrator is encouraged to communicate internally, informing staff of their role. If you do not know who your organization’s MIIC user administrator is, email the help desk at health.miichelp@state.mn.us with your organization code. 

Monitor ACKs/data exchange feeds

For organizations querying or sending immunization/client data to MIIC electronically, remember to monitor your data exchange feeds for proper submission. For each message submitted, MIIC sends back acknowledgement (ACK) messages which provide more information on what was added to MIIC including any errors or rejections. Although the MIIC team does monitor and conduct outreach for larger issues, each individual organization should still be regularly reviewing their own ACK messages to ensure data entry completeness and efficiency.

Regular monitoring allows for early identification and quick resolution of issues, preventing large-scale data quality concerns or large backlogs of missing data that develop over time. If you have any questions regarding errors, rejections, or anything else while monitoring your data exchange feed, contact health.miichelp@state.mn.us.

Users can also subscribe to GovDelivery: Minnesota Department of Health to receive MIIC data submission and exchange email updates which provide relevant information that could affect the flow of data to and from MIIC.

What can you do with the ‘mange my account’ function? Here are some tips!

You can manage your own account on MIIC by clicking manage my account on the top menu bar.

There are three actions you can take from the ‘manage my account’ function:

1. Edit personal information: Update your name, username, and other personal information. Note that your username must be unique from others in your organization.
2. Change password: Passwords must be changed every 60 days. You will receive an automated email informing your when your password is set to expire. Type your new password in the New Password and Confirm New Password fields.
   • Password requirements
     • Must be 12-13 characters long
     • Must contain at least one uppercase letter (A-Z)
     • Must contain at least one lowercase letter (a-z)
     • Must contain at least one number (0-9)
     • Must contain at least one special character (~!@#$%^*()-_+={}[]/?)
3. Manage your security questions: Setting and maintaining your security questions is the easiest way to ensure access to your MIIC account if your password is expired or forgotten. There are three drop-down menus that you can select a question from. To set your answers, type them into the Answer 1-3 and Confirm Answer 1-3 fields and then select submit. Ensure your answers have at least five characters.

For further step-by-step assistance, visit MIIC Manage My Account User Guidance .

Provider spotlight: Victoria Standley, Sanford Health

Victoria has worked at Sanford Health for 6 years and in the position of Immunization Program Specialist for more than 3 years.

How long have you been working with MIIC?

Since September of 2021.

How does your organization utilize MIIC?

Many of our locations use MIIC to see what vaccines providers have given to patients.

Why is data quality important to you?

Data quality can impact patient health such as revaccinating patients or not giving patients what they need to prevent developing disease which ultimately can lead to hurting patient health.

What steps do you take for reporting good quality data to MIIC? Accurate/complete?

In Minnesota and other states clinics we constantly update demographic information internally to help keep records as up to date as possible to ensure MIIC records are accurate.

What changes have been made to how your organization manages user accounts?

In the last 6 months we’ve developed a new process of managing users to streamline the DUA process by using a spreadsheet of clinics to make the contracts organized instead of having many different contracts all over the place.

What tips do you have for managing user accounts more effectively?

Having contact with IT and security teams to work with to make sure your workplace is a good fit. We have an ‘easy’ button which goes to a portal in Sanford to submit a work order to IT to fix whatever the issue you have concerning MIIC. Many users misunderstand MIIC so we thought it would be helpful to know how it can be utilized. Our organization held info sessions to review MIIC user roles and to verify work assignments for each staff role to ensure they have the appropriate MIIC access level. Multidisciplinary users must understand what their role is otherwise nothing will get done.

How do you think these changes are improving data quality?

It has improved our data quality by increasing understanding of who our go-to people are for getting the help they need when they need it, such as if someone needs a password reset. This helps with efficiency while entering information for provider and patients, ultimately leading to better data quality.

What is your favorite thing about MIIC?

I enjoy the education around MIIC and the individuals on staff are always willing to help with questions as you onboard.

Is there any additional information you’d like to include?

Be patient with this application: it takes time to know how to navigate it. We’re often a one-click society and this application does not work this way. Patience is key. MIIC can be very helpful; it just takes time to understand how to use it.

health.state.mn.us