National Infant Immunization Week is coming up! 

April 27 - May 4

Here are some ideas for ways that your practice can celebrate NIIW this year:

• “Launch” NIIW by bringing in breakfast or lunch for your staff. Bring copies of U.S. CDC’s “Talking with Parents about Vaccines for Infants[4 pages].” Use this opportunity to discuss ways that your entire practice can promote NIIW to parents. Decorate your waiting room with balloons, streamers, U.S. CDC posters, an NIIW banner, and coloring sheets.
• Promote NIIW on Facebook or Twitter.  U.S. CDC has sample tweets and Facebook posts you can use during NIIW and throughout the year.
• Run an article in your practice’s newsletter or on your website.
• Play U.S. CDC videos in your waiting room or link to them on your website:
• Print fact sheets on vaccine safety and vaccine-preventable diseases and display them in your waiting room or exam rooms:
• Encourage your nurses and receptionists to review any resources that you have displayed.
• Take out an ad in your local newspaper reminding parents to ensure that their children’s vaccines are up to date.

By making NIIW an event for your entire practice, you can raise awareness about the importance of immunization for protecting children in your community and be a strong voice in support of U.S. CDC’s recommended immunization schedule.

For more information, visit the U.S. CDC's NIIW webpage. 

Friendly Reminders

If your Provider Agreement has been denied, please call us at 207-287-3756 to see if there are items that need to be submitted to our program for re-approval. For more information on the required items, please review the memo that was sent to all Maine Immunization Program Providers in 2018.

Did you miss the February Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Meeting? 

Voices for Vaccines (VFV) has posted a new entry in its Vax Talk podcast series which includes Vaccine Updates from ACIP's February Meeting.

Visit the Voices for Vaccine Website Podcast Page.

Education Corner

Screening for Eligibility 

When screening a patient for eligibility in ImmPact, it is important to ensure that you are are choosing the correct category. For example, if you have a privately insured patient under the age of 19, you would not choose "private stock" as their eligibility category. In this case, you would choose the first option in the picture below: "State Eligible - Insured - Under 19". 

Wastage: Drawing Up & Not Administering 

There has been a dramatic increase in vaccine doses that are being drawn up, but not administered within practices. This should be a rare occurrence. One of the reasons why this may be happening more frequently could be due to being unsure of which category the wasted vaccine should go under. If you are unsure, we encourage you to call or email us. We are happy to help! Valerie MacKenzie, our Provider Relations Specialist can be reached at: valerie.mackenzie@mail.com or you may call 207-287-3746.

Webinar Save the Date What: Data Logger Webinar  When: Tuesday, April 30th from 12:00 - 1:00 PM  This webinar will be covering how to set up your data logger, configure it, download temperatures off of it, as well as change the battery. There will also be time to answer questions about any issues you've been having. We will be sending out additional log in information as the date gets closer, so please stay tuned!

Data Logger Error Message 

Are you getting an error message when you are attempting to download your temperatures off of your LogTag data logger? You may need to download updated software. Control Solutions has indicated that there are known issues with versions earlier than 2.9. To learn more about the error message, please visit the Control Solutions website.