Immunisation hub

Information, resources and education for health professionals

The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) welcomes you to the Immunisation Hub for nurses and health professionals.

ACNs Immunisation Hub provides clinical advice on the safest and most effective use of vaccines in practice to educate and support immunisation providers to deliver vaccines safely.

Get the latest specialised immunisation advice and resources, and sign up for our immunisation education courses designed to help you deliver immunisation services to your community. These include vaccine-preventable diseases fact sheets and FAQs, recorded presentations, webinars, clinical decision-making resources and education courses designed by industry experts and educators to provide professionals with a comprehensive understanding of immunisation principles, the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable diseases, and implementing and monitoring vaccination programs.

On this page:  Did you know? | Immunisation coverage rates |  News  |  Education |  Useful links  |  Contact an expert

'Did you know?' immunisation facts

immunisation-hub-fact-syringe

Do I need to aspirate the syringe prior to administering vaccine contents?

Current research discusses there is no need to aspirate the syringe prior to administering the vaccine contents as this could cause further pain at the injection site. Review the Australian Immunisation handbook for further information.

immunisation-hub-fact-immune-system-bacteria

The pertussis vaccine can prevent typical whooping cough 85% of the time and mild whooping cough 75% of the time.

Unfortunately, our immune systems do not remember the abnormal bacteria forever and so infection may still occur but symptoms milder. It is therefore important to receive booster vaccines to prevent infection as well as protect those who are at risk of this diseases.

immunisation-hub-fact-monkeypox

Monkeypox is a viral infection which is spread via skin-to-skin contact with someone who has the infection.

One of the best ways to prevent this disease is with vaccination of the smallpox vaccine. Currently this vaccine is being administered to those in high-risk groups. To find out more please review your state/territory health websites.

immunisation-hub-fact-nurse-scrub

The recent pandemic has raised many questions by the general public as well as health professionals on new vaccines, herd immunity and current research being conducted in this area.

As registered nurses, enrolled nurses and midwives who are giving vaccines, did you know that the NMBA recognises the Australian Immunisation Handbook (the handbook) as a resource to be used to provide evidence-based advice to health professionals? The handbook provides advice about the safe and effective use of vaccines and public health benefits associated with vaccination.

Immunisation coverage rates

The National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) analyses the data in the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) to obtain the statistics for vaccination coverage in children. On 31 March 2021, the AIR was used for the first time to collect vaccination coverage data for adolescents and adults.

Use the interactive feature to view the immunisation coverage rates by map or graph.

News

Get the latest news, media and ACN NurseClick articles about immunisation.

Immunisation Poll
Have you completed an immunisation course?
Where did you complete your immunisation course?

Education

347 National Immunisation Program for Healthcare Practitioners

347 National Immunisation Program for Healthcare Practitioners

The Australian College of Nursing’s (ACN) 347 National Immunisation Program for Healthcare Practitioners course is based on the National Immunisation Education Framework for Health Professionals (2017) and has been accredited by the ANMAC subsidiary Health Education Services Australia (HESA) to deliver this course. HESA is the National body for health education accreditation and ACN is the first institution to have its Immunisation course accredited.

346 Immunisation for Registered Nurses

346 Immunisation for Registered Nurses

This unit of study can be taken by RNs as part of a relevant Graduate Certificate course or as a stand alone single unit of study. The unit examines the physiology of the immune system and how vaccines work to protect the community from vaccine-preventable diseases. Legal and ethical considerations are discussed in an Australian context with application to clinical practice. A Global and National immunisation perspective is reviewed with a focus on immunisation coverage and disease rates.

Tuberculosis Management

357 Tuberculosis management (TST/BCG)

The Tuberculosis Management course is designed for registered nurses who are required to perform Tuberculin Skin Tests (TST) and Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccinations as part of their roles. The purpose of the course is to provide you with a theoretical framework that you can use in your clinical practice when you administer, read, interpret and document TST and BCG vaccinations.

Pacific Islands Immunisation Course

Pacific Islands Immunisation Course

NEW

ACN’s Pacific Islands Immunisation Course is designed for nurses and other healthcare professionals practicing in the Pacific Island countries and territories. This course contains theoretical knowledge relating to vaccination and the delivery of vaccination programs.

Online CPD

Influenza vaccination 2022

Immunisation CPD

ACN offers immunisation specific CPD in the form of updates addressing contemporary topics, updates and specialty topics of interest. New options are added throughout the year and may include live webinar sessions and/or self-paced interactive modules.

Student testimonials

“I commenced my training in 1988 (dinosaur era!) and have nursed ever since in a multitude of settings. Within these years I’ve undertaken numerous certificate and short courses and can wholeheartedly say that this one has provided me with THE most support, encouragement and guidance I’ve ever had. Entering into an online setting was quite foreign and a little daunting, however with your assistance I’ve found it quite enjoyable, despite the challenges and look forward to exploring some more education later this year.

Thank you once again, you’ve made a huge difference!”

“Many thanks for all I have learnt in this course. I have found it so beneficial for my work, very relevant, completely up to date and very professionally delivered. The weekly learning and assessment tasks were very well structured, carefully building the knowledge base. I did find the final assessment task extremely challenging, but very rewarding and extremely practical and relevant. Again a very big thank you to all involved in putting the Immunisation for registered nurses course together. I most definitely will recommend this course to others.”

“I loved the course, the information and resources (articles, web sites etc) were invaluable.”

“I have really enjoyed this course. I have found the content very interesting and look forward to putting it in to practice and continuing to learn out in the community. I would highly recommend this course.”

“Having not attended any online study before I did find the course challenging, but interesting. To complete each of the assessments I had to be very organized time wise to complete the tasks as required.”

“I found the course to be very thorough, with excellent support and resource material available.”

“Regardless of your location the course was delivered to suit the needs of each state listed, it has been challenging however very rewarding. The forum provides a great platform to discuss the course content with fellow students and tutor.”

“This course has been highly relevant to my practice and well worthwhile completing.”

“Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the course despite the heavy workload – an assignment per week is a tall order when already working. Logical order, well written information and I enjoyed each assignment and found them a great way to consolidate the information.”

“I went from feeling very over whelmed at the start to actually really enjoying the course.”

“I thought this course was very well designed and structured, I was actually really impressed with the content. Very interesting and relevant.”

“I have learnt so much from this course, and will highly recommend this course to my friends and colleagues. It is a heavy 10 weeks course, but I truly enjoyed it, especially learning all vaccines and catch up schedule. The website is easy to use, the course schedule and assessment is very easy to read and clear. Tutor or course coordinator of this course are contactable and approachable. Communication via messaging or phone call is easy. Thank you so much for the learning opportunity.”

Contact an expert

email-green-white-circle-icon