The urgent need to review vaccination coordination models to enhance their safety has been emphasized.
In a statement released today, the USF-AN underscores “the importance of safe, reliable, and clinically grounded vaccination.”
The document highlights “the technical, scientific, and ethical autonomy of nurses as legally qualified professionals responsible for administering vaccines and conducting clinical assessments related to the vaccination act.”
It also raises an alert over “the negative impact” of “the inefficiency of health information systems, particularly the recurring failures of the vaccination registration system.”
These “failures” have, according to the association, “resulted in operational constraints that could compromise the safety, reliability, and continuity of the vaccination process, directly affecting the quality of nursing care and public health management.”
The situation is described as being worsened by numerous vaccination points that often lack coordination, fragmenting care continuity, complicating resource management, and increasing the risk of duplicate or missing records, it notes.
In view of this scenario, USF-NA advocates in the statement that “leadership should primarily understand operational realities and avoid promoting less secure practices in an activity planned over time, allowing for the reorganization of daily targets.”
It stresses that maintaining “ineffective systems with recurring failures, annually, during the seasonal vaccination period, does not provide an adequate response,” which can be deemed “incompatible with an efficient and reliable information system.”
Furthermore, USF-AN advocates for the autonomy of healthcare professionals administering vaccines. As per principles enshrined in professional regulations, “nurses must assess the clinical status of the individual prior to vaccination, and when indicated, may perform additional assessments, always ensuring informed consent, privacy, and safety.”
Accordingly, nurses have the “right and duty” to decide on techniques and means, using methods specific to the profession in the provision of care, the association recalls.
For USF-AN, uncertainty surrounding the vaccination rollout “has caused demotivation in teams, devaluation of nurses’ skills, and practices that deviate from recommended professional standards.”
Emphasizing that the vaccination act is a clinical nursing task, which “requires appropriate safety, reliability, and clinical validation” and that “the failure of information systems should not compel the execution of clinical acts without guaranteed safe and validated recording, but should rather activate effective and safe contingency plans,” which they believe could even include “delaying vaccination.”
Consequently, the association argues in the statement that “it is urgent to review vaccination coordination models, ensuring efficient information systems, integrated management of vaccination points, and competent clinical leadership,” reaffirming its availability “to collaborate with health authorities in reviewing organizational and IT vaccination processes, in defense of safe, autonomous, and scientifically supported nursing practice.”
