Central Region adopts South Island eGrowth charts solution

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Picture: Hawke’s Bay DHB intensivist Matthew Bailey

eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

South Island and Central Region District Health Boards are using the same electronic solution to track body measurements from birth to death via their regional clinical portals.

The solution, Anthropometrics (or eGrowth Charts), has been used at Southern DHB since it was created in 2011 and rolled out across the South Island five years later, integrating into the South Island's shared clinical portal, Health Connect South.

It enables patients’ key body measurements to be captured electronically and clinicians to easily enter and view the information and improves access to growth records of children and babies moving between DHBs.

The same solution has now been integrated into the central region’s Clinical Portal. 

Hawke’s Bay DHB intensivist Matthew Bailey represents the central region on the governance board that plans future developments for the product, such as integration to Plunket data and neonatal growth recording.

He says the solution is hosted in Dunedin and uses the same data set with two separate servers, one for Health Connect South and one for Clinical Portal.

A single dataset now spans more than one regional portal in New Zealand, so “growth data will follow the patient around no matter where they present to any hospital south of Palmerston North,” Bailey says.

Professor Barry Taylor collaborated with Lance Elder, application developer of Southern DHB, to create the tool.

"The Southern DHB and then the South Island as a whole put a lot of work into developing and then choosing a solution that integrates well into the clinical record, is easy for data entry and gives accurate graphical and numerical analysis of body measurements for all ages," Taylor says. 

"We are able now to work across DHBs seamlessly with respect to body measurements in children and adults and other DHBs are welcome to join us."

Bailey says the project is a good example of DHBs collaborating to share information services development work and costs.

Bailey and Elder are presenting on the project during the HiNZ 2019 Conference as part of Digital Health Week NZ in Hamilton next week.

Their presentation will focus primarily on the challenges and differences of working with DHBs across regions compared to other ways to develop software in the New Zealand environment.

Read more about Digital Health Week NZ 2019

If you would like to provide feedback on this news story please contact the editor Rebecca McBeth.

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