STIKO

STIKO is the Ständige Impfkommission, an independent expert committee attached to the Robert Koch Institute. It issues the official vaccination recommendations for Germany, which state the vaccinations advised for each age group and each situation, and it publishes updates to them on a regular schedule.

Every misunderstanding comes from what the recommendations actually are, because they are advice reached by an expert body, and that advice carries real weight without binding anybody as an individual. They describe what is advised rather than what a pharmacy is allowed to do, so three things are decided outside them:

• Who may give a vaccination, and after which ärztliche Schulung, is answered by a different set of rules.
• Nothing in the recommendations concerns money, which is settled wherever the Impfhonorar is settled.
• Whether one particular person should have a vaccination is a question for a physician.

A pharmacy quotes the recommendations rather than paraphrasing them, because a quoted recommendation gives the whole team one answer that reads the same on Monday and on Friday, whoever happens to be at the counter. A paraphrase produces a slightly different answer from each member of staff, and that difference is what customers notice and repeat elsewhere.

Quoting also keeps the wording used in a window display or a leaflet inside what the Heilmittelwerbegesetz allows, because a recommendation reported accurately is not a promise.

The recommendations change, which is the practical trap, because an out of date printout in the back room is worse than no printout at all when it gets quoted with confidence. Note the publication date on whatever version the team works from, put the check for a newer version in the same review cycle as any other Standardarbeitsanweisung, and treat the current version as the only one that counts.

The conversation itself is usually short, because the record of what somebody has already had is one thing, the current recommendation is another, and the gap between the two is what the customer came in to ask about. Naming the source, naming its date and sending anything beyond that to a physician keeps the answer useful and keeps it inside the pharmacy's remit.