Eziz.Org—the One-Stop Shop for California VFC Providers

Background:
With more than 4,000 providers enrolled in California's VFC Program, the ongoing education and training of immunizers is a significant challenge. In many practices, immunizations are administered primarily by medical assistants who have only rudimentary vaccine knowledge and training.
The VFC Program surveyed its provider network and learned that the majority of providers are willing to provide time, computers, and internet access to medical assistants so they can take online training to increase their immunization skills and knowledge.

Setting:
Various settings, including: VFC provider practices, public health departments, community health centers, nursing schools, medical centers, mass vaccinations training programs, and medical assistant certificate programs.

Population:
Clinical and administrative staff responsible for ordering and administering vaccine, and for the proper storage and handling of vaccine.

Project Description:
The eziz.org website is a “one-stop shop” for current and potential providers in California's VFC program. EZ-IZ offers cost-effective, 24/7 quick and easy access to a wide variety of training and other resources.
• Content for providers includes VFC Program information, recertification, vaccine availability, and forms.
• Content for clinical and administrative staff (primarily medical assistants) includes interactive elearning lessons, video demonstrations of immunization skills, job aids, and tools (such as temperature and vaccine usage logs).
Pilot testing with the primary target population was critical to the successful development of the e-learning.
The e-learning component of EZ-IZ is integrated with a learning management system that tracks each learner's progress and automatically notifies learners when they can print their certificates of completion.

Results/Lessons Learned:
Within two months of EZ-IZ's launch, a number of audiences in addition to the target population were using it, including nursing schools and a large medical center in New Hampshire. EZ-IZ is also being used by county health departments to train vaccinators for mass vaccination clinics.