Activity Overview

Providing a vaccine involves more than preparing and administering an injection. Before a vaccine is given, patients—or their parents or legal representatives—must receive appropriate information about the vaccine, including its benefits, risks, and potential adverse reactions.

One of the primary tools used to communicate this information is the Vaccine Information Statement, commonly called a VIS.

Vaccine Information Statements are standardized educational documents developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They are designed to help vaccine recipients understand the disease being prevented, the benefits and risks of vaccination, situations that may require discussion with the healthcare provider, possible vaccine reactions, and what to do if a serious problem occurs.

For many routinely administered vaccines, providing the appropriate VIS is not simply a recommendation—it is a federal requirement.

Pharmacy technicians who participate in immunization services may be responsible for providing the appropriate VIS, confirming that the patient has received it, and documenting required information according to pharmacy procedures and applicable state law. Clinical questions concerning contraindications, precautions, vaccine selection, or whether a patient should receive a vaccine should be referred to the supervising pharmacist or other qualified healthcare provider.

This section explains how VISs are used, when they are required, how current versions are identified, how they may be provided to patients, what must be documented, and how VISs differ from consent forms and other vaccine information materials.

Important: CDC updates VISs when vaccine recommendations or important safety information changes. Always use current CDC resources and follow applicable federal and state requirements and your organization's policies.

Learning Objectives

After completing this section, the learner should be able to:

1. Define a Vaccine Information Statement and explain its purpose.

2. Identify the federal law governing required use of VISs.

3. Determine when a VIS must be provided to a vaccine recipient.

4. Distinguish vaccines for which VIS use is federally required from vaccines for which CDC recommends VIS use.

5. Explain the difference between a VIS and an informed-consent form.

6. Locate and identify the current edition of a VIS.

7. Describe appropriate methods for providing VISs in paper and electronic formats.

8. Identify resources for patients who need VISs in languages other than English.

9. Identify information that must be documented when a VIS and vaccine are provided.

10. Apply VIS requirements to common pharmacy vaccination scenarios.

All reading material for home-study was developed by CDC. Powell Health has not been endorsed by the US government, HHS, or CDC. These materials can be found online without charge outside of the Powell Health immunization training program. These documents are supplementary to the Powell Health Immunization Training program and charges cover the processing of CE.

Course Requirements

1. Read through each section.

2. Take the post-test and receive a score of at least 80%.