Vaccine Administration and Safety

The Skills Checklist for Immunization is a self-assessment tool for healthcare staff who administer immunizations adapted by the Immunization Action Coalition. This checklist can be implemented within clinics to identify areas for improvement and clarify responsibilities and expectations for staff. This webpage highlights the five competencies within the checklist and provides resources and best practices that correspond to each competency.
Click to view the Skills Checklist for Immunization.

Patient/Parent Education

Medical Protocols

  • Vaccine Information Statements- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • Contraindications and Precautions: Vaccine Recommendations and Guidelines of the ACIP- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  • About the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)
    • VAERS is a national vaccine safety surveillance program that accepts and analyzes reports of adverse events (possible side effects) following vaccination. VAERS primarily monitors adverse health events and we encourage reporting of clinically significant adverse health events following vaccination. Using clinical judgment, healthcare professionals can decide whether or not to report a medical error. For example, a healthcare professional may elect to report vaccination errors that do not have an associated adverse health event, especially if they think the vaccination error may pose a safety risk (e.g., administering a live vaccine to an immunocompromised patient) or that the error would be preventable with public health action or education.
      • The primary objectives of VAERS are to:
        • Detect new, unusual, or rare vaccine adverse events (VAEs);
        • Monitor increases in known adverse events;
        • Assess the safety of newly licensed vaccines;
        • Determine and address possible reporting clusters (e.g., suspected localized [temporally or geographically] or product-/batch-/lot-specific adverse event reporting);
        • Recognize persistent safe-use problems and administration errors;
        • Provide a national safety monitoring system that extends to the entire general population for response to public health emergencies, such as a large-scale pandemic influenza vaccination program.
      • Report an Adverse Event

Vaccine Handling

Administering Immunizations

Records Procedures