The Schools-Based Vaccination System (SBVS), developed by Hutt Valley District Health Board, was specifically designed to aid New Zealand’s nationwide Meningococcal B immunisation campaign.
It aimed to enable the effective management, delivery and recording of information for group vaccination campaigns in schools.
The application was used for managing the vaccination of school-children throughout the country. Every child required three inoculations, eight to 12 weeks apart, as part of the programme.
The SBVS application supported the whole vaccination process. For example, consent forms were sent to all families, and the information contained in the forms was then entered into the SBVS. School rolls were also imported into the system, to assist with data entry and maintaining data quality, and this data was then made available to national health systems. Any immediate adverse reactions to the vaccination were also reported the Ministry of Health within 72 hours of inoculation.
SBVS’s major benefit is immunisation of all 5-19 year olds in schools. It allows public health nurses to easily trace those who have not been vaccinated, ensuring no student falls through the cracks.
Another major benefit is that the system is built and paid for just the once, but can be used over and over again. It can also link to the National Health system and the National Immunisation Register.
The budget for the SBVS project was tight and the project team was under pressure to deliver the solution as quickly as possible so the campaign could be launched. The project was delivered on time and within budget.
Nineteen district health boards around the country used SBVS to manage information relating to the immunisation of 990,000 students.