The recommended vaccine item set-up is useful when the same medicine product is used with varying vaccination expiration dates, a unique item is needed to trigger vaccination reminders of different expiration dates, and clear communication and informational reference is needed with clients on invoices and patient history. This set-up also supports combination (combo) vaccines that contain different expiration dates for specific diseases within the same injection.
In the recommended vaccine item setup, vaccines are created as medicines and procedures. The medicine items help to track inventory, and the procedures determine the price of the service and are used for reminders.
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Go to Catalog > Items and create the medicine item. Complete the configurations on the Item card.
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On the General tab, select the Vaccination checkbox. The Vaccine options section appears under visibility options.
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In the Vaccination against following diseases field, select the disease(s) this vaccine protects against. You can select from a list or type in the field. When you type and add a new disease, it will become available in the drop-down for other vaccines.
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Ensure all diseases covered by the injection are listed here. Listing all diseases ensures the full protection history is saved for the patient.
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If this is a combination vaccine (which incorporates two or more individual vaccines into a single injection to reduce the number of injections needed), listing the diseases is needed for setting up the specific duration of protection (validity periods). Since the validity period may differ between the components of a combination vaccine, a patient may require a different combination or a single-component vaccine at their next visit to address specific immunity gaps.
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Select the Vaccination type from the drop-down list.
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Select an option under Vaccination effect groups: Using the effect groups, you can set up how long the vaccine is good for. This is needed since many vaccines have different “terms” for how long the vaccine is valid for in the patient (for example, 3 weeks, 1 year, 3 years, etc.). Under the vaccine options, define how the system should apply these durations:
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Diseases have same effect groups: Select this if all diseases protected by this vaccine share the same expiration period.
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Diseases have different effect groups: Select this for combination vaccines where components have different validity periods (e.g., four diseases are valid for 1 year, but one is valid for 3 years). Selecting this option will enable the ability to create disease groups.
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Select + Effect expiration to define the validity periods for the vaccine. You can create multiple expiration rules for a single vaccine.
To set up separate expiration rules for combo vaccines, add the diseases for each group in the Select diseases for this group field and then select + Effect expiration. This allows you to define unique validity periods for every disease group within the same vaccine. Add more disease groups by selecting + Disease group.
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Add a descriptive Name for staff to recognise, for example, '1-year' or '3-year'. The name is shown in the drop-down menu of the consultation.
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Add the number of days the vaccination is valid for in the Expiration days field.
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If relevant, define an age interval that will help users to choose the correct effect group based on the patient’s age. Select the Use age interval checkbox and add the default suggested minimum and maximum ages the effect expiration would be selected for.
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Select Enable vaccine expiry warnings to make sure that users add the number of days the vaccine is valid for when adding the vaccine to a consultation.
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Go to the Pricing tab.
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Add the VAT group. Make sure that the Selling price and any additional pricing fields are set to $0. Note that you can set the cost fields as you wish, but any pricing associated with the medicine product will be invoiced to the client in addition to the procedure level pricing. Typically, medicine level pricing is defined as $0.
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Add and select any other relevant information. For example,
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Select Batch number required if you want users to select which batch of the vaccine they are using from.
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Select Hide zero item row on invoice printout if you want to hide the vaccine item from view on invoices since the item does not hold the price of the service.
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When you have filled in all relevant information, select Save.
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In Catalog > Items, create the procedure item. Your item list may support several versions of a vaccination procedure item, for example, Rabies 1 year and Rabies 3 year. Complete the following steps for each version.
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On the Usage tab in the item dialogue, add the medicine item you created in the previous step to the Linked items field.
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US only: Also add the medicine item in the Auto open linked item modal field so that the medicine item is automatically opened when this procedure item is added on a consultation.
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In the Selling price field, add the procedure price.
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Add any additional information as needed.
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When you have added and reviewed all the necessary information, select Save.
See how to create automatic patient reminders.
See an example of a vaccine reminder.
Note
When you create reminder rules for vaccination services, it is important to select the vaccine procedure as the trigger item and not the medicine item. If the medicine item is used as the trigger item, it will trigger every reminder rule which has the same item selected. This will generate multiple false reminders for the patient record.
When you add a vaccine to a consultation, you can see the configured effect groups in the medicine dialogue. For combination vaccines with multiple groups, the system tracks the specific protection period for each disease from that single administration.
On the patient page, go to the Immunisation tab. The Next Vaccination Due column displays the specific expiry date for each disease based on its configuration. This applies even if the vaccine was part of a combination dose.
When you print a vaccination certificate, the document displays the individual expiry dates for each disease category.
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