Catch-Up Immunization Scheduler

As a recent article for the Washington Post noted, it can be quite a challenge for parents to quickly figure out which immunizations their young children have received and which ones they still need. Staff of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD), in close collaboration with Georgia Tech, have developed and made available a free online tool that can help parents and their healthcare providers overcome this challenge.

The Catch-up Immunization Scheduler resolves the complexity that lies in weighing detailed guidelines and discretionary considerations when creating a catch-up schedule for a child. The tool simply requests the child's date of birth and previous immunization dates, and creates a personalized and printable schedule of the recommended dates to administer additional vaccine doses.

The tool was designed by Dr. Larry Pickering, MD; Shilpa Kottakapu; and Cathy Hogan, from NCIRD, in close collaboration with Georgia Tech professor Pinar Keskinocak, PhD, and graduate student Faramroze G. Engineer.

To provide this personalized schedule, the tool follows the immunization guidelines developed and revised each year by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians. The guidelines were programmed by the Georgia Tech researchers into the Catch-up software using dynamic programming to optimize and personalize a schedule for each child.

More Information

• Download the free tool by visiting the Catch-up Immunization Scheduler.
• Learn more about immunization schedules (e.g., for children, adolescents and adults), as well as the role of ACIP in developing immunization policies and recommendations for CDC.