Tutorial: #4 - Alternatives While PHIN VADS Is Down

[Mat Davis]

Hi all.

I ran across the following and thought I would share.

Thanks - Mat Davis
https://dynamichealthit.com

Overview

• If you haven't ran into this issue yet as of Sept 29th, then news flash, PHIN VADS ( Public Health Information Network Vocabulary Access and Distribution System) is down
• See the screenshot below for more info
  
  
  
  
• You may rely on VSAC more (happy it's still up!) but PHIN VADS does have relevant valuesets, especially on the eCR Now and Occupation / Occupation Industry side of things
• This down time is part of a scheduled / planned outage but the gist is that this is part 1 of a multi-part sunsetting process
• This means long term, this resource will likely not be available in its current form
  
  
• If you were lucky enough to download your relevant PHIN VADS valuesets before the outage then lucky you!
• But if you weren't lucky enough, what can you do?

Option #1

1. Wait for November 8th 2025 and hope that they are back available at that time.
2. Home Page: (PHIN VADS) 

Option #2

1. Send a request to the email address listed in the scheduled downtown message above
2. Provide all the listed expectations
3. Then wait for a response
4. NOTE: I haven't received any word from my original 10/14/2025 request yet - I'm assuming the Government Shutdown is affecting this response time

Option #3

1. Review other online alternatives
2. For 1 of the Occupation Valuesets, I found the following link that can somewhat align and feels like a valid source but use at your own discretion as it looks to use the latest version of the valueset (the latest is still acceptable but will not match the USCDIv3 Patient Specific Scenario PDF expected values)
   1. https://www.onetonline.org/find/result?s=janitor
3. Accessing the Census site directly may also yield desirable results
   1. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/technical-documentation/methodology/industry-and-occupation-classification.html

Option #4

1. This Option is the same as Option #3 but with more specific bread crumbs
2. I found the following link from the cdc.gov discussing PHIN VADS and its web service
   1. https://www.cdc.gov/phin/php/phinvads/index.html
3.  I then was able to use web.archive.org to see more information about this web service
   1. https://web.archive.org/web/20250901034326/https://phinvads.cdc.gov/vads/developersGuide.action
4. That then led me to Simplifier.NET's "us.cdc.phinvads 0.12.0 package"
   1. https://simplifier.net/packages/us.cdc.phinvads/0.12.0/~files
   2. NOTE: The History tab shows that the latest version of this package was released 3 years ago so keep that in mind if you end of using this option until PHIN VADS is back up
      
      History
      
      
      
      
      
      Preview
      
      
      
      
      
      

[Mat Davis]

Additional Link For More Info

https://www.fhir.org/packages/us.cdc.phinvads/

Thanks - Mat

[Mat Davis]

Status Update

1. Spotted a typo on my end
Option #2 > 1 > "scheduled downtown" vs "scheduled downtime"

2. PHIN VADS is still down as of this message - so their planned outage schedule is likely affected by the Government Shutdown
https://phinvads.cdc.gov/

3. I did receive an email response to my 10/14 email request as of -------->  Thursday, November 6, 2025 2:39 PM   ----->  they mention that they are "low on resources due to the government Shutdown"

4. They were still able to fulfill my request and supply the (2) valuesets that I initially requested

Thanks - Mat