BACKGROUND:
The Oregon Immunization Program strives to increase immunization rates through a variety of programs, services, and partnerships. One of the most successful partnerships has been with the four public vaccine manufacturer representatives from Wyeth Lederle, Merck and Company, Aventis Pasteur, and GlaxoSmithKline. These vaccine representatives continually offer their participation and support, enabling us to provide additional and/or higher quality resources to Oregon's immunization providers.
The vaccine representatives play an important role in reinforcing the benefits of our programs and services to immunization providers. To help them better understand our services, we created a training called the ‘Field Partnership Exchange'.

OBJECTIVE:
To educate vaccine representatives about the Oregon Immunization Program's services and projects.

METHOD:
The first step in planning the training was to meet with the public vaccine representatives to brainstorm the goals and agenda. The two goals identified were: to provide an in-depth understanding of our programs and services; and to explore ways to work cooperatively in raising immunization coverage levels.
Involving the public representatives in the planning stage was important because they helped create a training that would engage the private vaccine representatives. They also promoted the training and secured commitments from their private representatives.

RESULT:
14 participants representing the four manufacturing companies attended the training. Based on evaluations, the participants felt the training was informative and useful and would like to see it held again. The participants also left the training with the knowledge and skills to effectively discuss and promote VFC, the ALERT Registry, and AFIX in the field.

CONCLUSION:
This training was very effective in strengthening our partnership with the vaccine representatives in Oregon. It provided an opportunity to share and exchange field experiences and identify ways to collaborate.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
How to effectively partner with vaccine manufacturers to increase awareness of Immunization Programs' activities in the community.