Mobile app for school vaccines launches in England

A new mobile app that digitises the process of administering vaccinations in schools has launched in England. 

School immunisation teams in the south west of England have been the first to benefit from RIVIAM's new immunisations programme, using the app for their children’s flu vaccination programme this autumn. 

RIVIAM is a digital healthcare platform that helps clinicians coordinate patient care across providers. Their eConsent immunisations service aims to save the National Health Service (NHS) money and reduce risks by making the process paperless. 

“Using RIVIAM has enabled us to reduce the amount of time our team spends triaging consents by over 90 per cent. This is a significant saving that we can reinvest in our immunisations service" explains Charlotte Forward, Professional Lead for Public Health Nursing & School Age Immunisations at Virgin Care.

“The new app brings further efficiencies because it updates the child’s clinical record as soon as the vaccination is given. This takes a huge time pressure off the team so they can focus on preparation for the next school.” 

Suzy Mason, a Team Leader in the school immunisation team at Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, explained that the app enables them to save time on admin which can then be better spent elsewhere. “Our team of nurses are very pleased to be able to use the mobile application as it’s much quicker and gives us that extra time to spend with children and schools.

 “We’ve also found that the app is user-friendly and our nurses find it easy to use. It’s a really safe way of storing all the vital consent information about each child and has also reduced our triage and administration time. Parents have also told us that they like the new online consent form as they find it quick and easy to complete online.” 

The app gives nurses secure access to clinic lists of children with their associated consents and triage history. When the app is online, it automatically updates the vaccination outcomes in RIVIAM. If RIVIAM is connected to a clinical system, the outcomes are recorded in real time. 

RIVIAM say that by making the process paperless there is less room for error - nurses access all the data they need via the app on their device, improving patient safety. 

Administration time is reduced with automatic updates of the patient’s record, so there is no need for them to go back to base after clinics to record vaccination outcomes. 

Key features of the app, which is available on Android and Apple devices, include: 

• Clinic diary 

•Clinic list of children

 • Child’s consent and clinical history

 • Immunisation outcome tracking

 • Synchronised clinic lists across devices if multiple clinicians are working from the same clinic list and are connected to the internet 

• Automatic updating of the outcome to RIVIAM and clinical systems