In the last decade, vaccine information management has slowly evolved from paper at every level in the health system, to Excel-based reports at higher levels (districts or above) that are emailed, to simple stand-alone databases with exported PDF reports, and most recently web forms that capture data and display essential dashboards online. Different countries are at different stages in this evolution, and most still rely on paper to capture data from health facilities and vaccination points. In Tanzania, the Immunization and Vaccine Development (IVD) program uses all of these tools to manage its diverse data. But each of them—manual and electronic—are customized and unique to immunization program needs; none are in use in other health programs or commodity supply chains, even though the data needs and uses are similar. JSI is working closely with IVD and other partners, including CHAI, PATH, and VillageReach, to create an integrated vaccine information management system (VIMS) that serves the unique needs of IVD. VIMS is a module within the electronic LMIS (eLMIS) architecture already deployed nationwide, but with many added features that deliver the full set of requirements IVD has identified, including robust cold chain equipment status and maintenance features and barcode capability... Read the complete blog post here: http://thepump.jsi.com/building-the-next-generation-vaccine-information-management-system-vims-in-tanzania/