Digital vaccination system enables efficiency and speed for NHS Wales staff
The national vaccination administration system delivering the COVID-19 vaccine has been given high praise by a range of NHS staff across Wales.
Wales is leading in the UK with 68.5% of our population being fully vaccinated, and now all 16 and 17 year olds are being offered their first vaccine.
The Welsh Immunisation System (WIS) is deployed across all health boards in Wales and is an information system for the management, distribution and reporting of the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme.
WIS is used by healthcare staff from across the whole of NHS Wales, from intensive care nurses, dental hygienists and midwives, to those of a non-clinical background who run the administrative element of the roll out.
The system was designed by Digital Heath and Care Wales (DHCW) – the NHS Wales organisation responsible for NHS Digital services, and rapidly deployed with members of the DHCW business change teams training users in vaccination centres.
Users have said it is quick and easy to use, with payment for the vaccines built directly into the software. It also allows for any payment discrepancy to be corrected from within the software, saving time and error for admin staff.
Information teams at DHCW identified cohorts and built dashboards accordingly which let NHS colleagues know of progress. The data collected in WIS was made available through our data centre to health boards and Public Health Wales.
Second vaccinations are automatically booked within the system, saving further time and admin processes for NHS staff on the ground.
Dawn, immuniser at Newbridge mass vaccination centre uses WIS on a daily basis. She said,
“I find WIS really easy to use, and with my background being an Oral Health Practitioner and my age, I have actually found it really easy to get along with because I’m not very techy. Everything is here to help me, I get prompts of what details to put in and I have adapted to it very well”.
Hayley Gayle, a nurse vaccinating at Raven’s Court mass vaccination centre in Bridgend believes one of the reasons Wales’ vaccination programme has been so successful is due to WIS,
“Without WIS, my job would have been much more difficult. It has saved me a lot of time and effort. We can find all the patient details on the spot, which means we’re not turning patients away if they don’t know or have the correct details.
Without WIS, we’d be turning people away, so it’s made my job much more efficient and I suspect that’s why Wales is now leading in the vaccination programme”
A vaccination clinic cannot start each day without input of certain data into WIS. Lois Lloyd, Lead Pharmacist for the COVID-19 vaccine deployment explains how vital this feature of WIS is. She said,
A vaccination clinic should not begin each day without a critical governance check and input of certain pharmaceutical data into WIS. Lois Lloyd, Lead Pharmacist for the COVID-19 vaccine deployment explains how vital this feature of WIS is. She said,
“A vaccine clinic starts each day with the basic input of the fridge temperature monitoring at the centre- which is reported twice daily and can be flagged if temperatures are not within the cold-chain range. This means that every effort is made to assure that the vaccines are consistently being stored and monitored at optimum temperature range, delivering high quality vaccines to the people of Wales.
“When a batch of vaccines is delivered to a vaccination site the detail is entered into WIS, this information then forms part of a single data repository for Wales. Vaccinators and admin staff have access only to their specific vaccination site, and there is less opportunity for batch number entry error as these are all pre-populated within WIS as assigned by the central pharmacy team. This means less errors in staff entering data and we have end to end visibility of the vaccine supply chain across Wales. This also makes it very easy for pharmacovigilance which involves reporting of potential side effects experienced by those receiving the vaccine, as the specific batch of vaccine that was administered is recorded at individual patient level.
“The control, visibility and data centralisation of the vaccine roll out with WIS has been crucial to the leading programme Wales is currently delivering and has been instrumental in minimising vaccine dose wastage.”
Work on the system continues with frequent updates that reflect user needs and requests, government guidelines, and continual future proofing to ensure that the patients of NHS Wales are getting the best possible health and care.
