Maternity record to be shared nationwide

eHealthNews.nz: National Systems & Strategy

Tuesday, 19 September 2023

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NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

The first phase of a shared clinical record for maternity care has gone live, called the Perinatal Spine (the Spine).

The Spine is a secure information-sharing system that will allow participating health professionals involved in providing pregnancy care across the motu to share and access up-to-date information on their pregnant person, in a single pregnancy record, no matter what IT system they use.

It is being delivered in four phases and phase one went live with two early adopters in August, sharing a dataset related to bookings between community midwives and birth facilities.

Clevermed delivers the Spine, as well as the BadgerNet Maternity (and neonatal) Clinical Information System (MCIS). This is used in seven Te Whatu Ora hospital districts, with the remaining districts due to onboard over the coming years.

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Initially, maternity health professionals that use either MCIS, Expect Maternity or Maternity Plus as their clinical information system will have Spine access as these three core vendors are now compliant with the new HISO Maternity Care Summary Standard.

In future phases, necessary access will be extended to more health professionals such as other lead maternity carers, general practitioners, Well Child providers, Allied Health providers, mental health workers, and social workers.

Te Whatu Ora says all ‘direct source’ maternity providers will be able to connect to the Spine by around mid-2025.

Teresa Omundsen, Te Whatu Ora programme manager - maternity, says most antenatal maternity care is delivered in the community and it is essential to share this clinical information between community, hospital, and other providers.

If a woman moves around the country or changes midwife, their information does not currently follow them.

“Most of a woman's journey during pregnancy is out in the community, but the national maternity IT solution is for hospitals,” she explains.

“The Spine will feed the information through into these other systems, and also retrieve information updated by others, so any participating health professional involved in the woman’s care can access up to date information to make accurate clinical decisions.”

Omundsen says Te Whatu Ora worked with a range of key sector stakeholders to develop the Maternity Care Summary Standard which provides a ‘snapshot’ of essential pregnancy information that can be shared.

Getting privacy and consent right is a huge piece of work to ensure consumers properly understand and consent to the use of their data and can choose how they want it to be shared.

“Behind the scenes maternity care is very complex as the maternity record is managed and captured by many clinicians, so this is a real multidisciplinary system with many secure access points for reading and updating information,” she says.

Omundsen adds that national artifacts are available and being used to implement MCIS at each new site, so resources and knowledge are reused.

Te Whatu Ora Hauora a Toi Bay of Plenty went live with MCIS in August 2023. Te Matau a Māui Hawke’s Bay is due to go-live in October, followed by Capital and Coast in November and next year Hutt Valley, Wairarapa and Lakes will join them.

Te Whatu Ora MidCentral, Tairāwhiti, Counties Manukau, Te Toka Tumai Auckland, Waitemata are already using the system. Capital and Coast and MidCentral are also using the MCIS neonatal module.

Read more about the Spine in the latest edition of Digital Health CONNECT magazine.