VPD Course Registration Deadline Extended

The deadline to register for the November 19-20 Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Disease course in Orange, California has been extended. Faculty includes CDC and CDPH staff, and CEUs will be offered. Course will be held at the Doubletree Hotel in Orange. A distance learning option is not offered. Registration is $50 per person. No fax or telephone registrations will be accepted; however, onsite registration is available.

The registration form is available online. It is expected that this is the last time this popular two-day course will be offered “live.”

IZ Branch Gets Gold and Silver NPHIC Awards

California’s Immunization Branch was honored at this year’s National Public Health Information Coalition (NPHIC) “Excellence in Health Communications” awards ceremony. The Immunization Branch earned two NPHIC Gold Awards. The video documentary "Vaccines:  Wading through the Confusion" production won in the Outsourced New Media Category, and the "Immunizations for a Healthy Pregnancy" brochure won in the In-House Brochure category. The IZ Branch dominated the New Media category, with "EZIZ Web-based Training for Medical Assistants" taking the Silver Award.

The awards were presented last month at NPHIC’s annual conference in Miami. Public health communications colleagues from across the U.S. praised the Immunization Branch’s work. Last year, California received a Silver Award for its multimedia presentation, “Brochure 2 Blog.”

EZ-IZ Launches New Lesson: Storing Vaccines

Storing Vaccines, the third online lesson in the EZ-IZ training curriculum, launched September 23, 2009. Within one month, over 1,200 learners had completed the lesson, which teaches participants to:

1. Prepare refrigerators and freezers for vaccine storage
2. Store vaccines in refrigerators and freezers
3. Protect vaccine storage unit power supplies.

EZ-IZ is the training and resource site for the California Vaccines for Children (VFC) program. Although the primary target audience for the EZ-IZ training is medical assistants in California VFC practices, the more than 5,000 EZ-IZ learners to date include health care and other professionals in many job categories, including MDs, RNs, LVNs, PAs, LPNs, pharmacists, paramedics, medics, firefighters, medical practice office managers, and student nurses.

The EZ-IZ curriculum is currently in wide use throughout the US for seasonal and H1N1 mass vaccination training. Usage is likely to increase throughout the H1N1 outbreak and seasonal flu season. The current curriculum consists of Preparing Vaccines, Administering Vaccines, and now Storing Vaccines.