Vaccine Management Business Improvement Project (VMBIP)

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What is VMBIP?

The Vaccine Management Business Improvement Project (VMBIP) represents the efforts of the National Immunization Program (NIP), state and local immunization program managers, and an outside consulting group, to improve current vaccine management processes at the federal, state and local levels. The goals for the project are to identify opportunities and develop solutions towards improving efficiency, accountability, and the nation's ability to respond to public health crises.

Why VMBIP is Needed

Vaccine management and accountability needs have grown dramatically since the inception of the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program in 1994. However, many vaccine management and accountability processes are still conducted using methods and technology established more than a decade ago. Consisting of a patchwork of stand-alone computer applications and paper-based systems operated by CDC and state and local immunization programs, these processes:

• are cumbersome and expensive to manage.
• prevent rapid responses to changes in vaccine supply and demand at the national, state or local levels.
• produce inconsistent levels of accountability at the individual immunization provider level.

VMBIP Goals

The goals of the Vaccine Management Business Improvement Project's (VMBIP) are to:

1. Simplify processes for the ordering, distribution, and management of vaccines in order to be able to respond more quickly and effectively to public health crises related to disease outbreaks, vaccine shortages, and disruption of the vaccine supply.
2. Implement a more efficient vaccine supply system that will result in the redirection of vital public health resources away from vaccine distribution and towards public health activities that will improve immunization coverage levels.
3. Significantly reduce the lead time between orders for vaccine and delivery of that vaccine and enable the direct delivery of vaccines to providers.

First Phase

In 2003, NIP established a team to review the existing system by gathering information across all parts of the vaccine supply chain, including vaccine manufacturers, third-party vaccine distributors, state and local health departments, and medical providers. Through this review, a number of priority areas were identified including funds management, vaccine distribution, provider ordering, inventory management, and the operation of the national pediatric stockpile.

Second Phase

The second phase of the project involved the establishment of six teams to address specific components of this project. These teams have been meeting to identify problem areas and develop solutions.

Each team contributes to the overall implementation of this project. As VMBIP continues, it is important for NIP to keep its partners and stakeholders informed of the process and the progress that has been made since its inception.

Next Steps

The next step in the implementation process is to finalize the details of the new approach and pilot the approach initially on a small scale in a few immunization projects.

Once the team has tested the processes in the first sites, the pilot will be expanded to other projects, initially to those that are already using commercial distributors, and then to those that are currently distributing vaccine via internal distribution systems.

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