Work Package 8

Electronic records and other e-health tools can be extremely supportive, but they must not dominate practice. This work package explores their use in the context of children’s primary health care services, and has a number of objectives:

  • Identify the types and models of electronic record system (EHR) supporting child primary health care and whether these are child specific EHRs.
  • Identify any child health agreed standard data sets which are or have the potential to be included in primary care records, national summary records, data exchanges or similar, as well as parent and personal child held health records.
  • Identify national or collaborative child health registries, cohort studies or similar.
  • Compare the above finings with established coding and standards initiatives at a high level, including SNOMED, ICD-10, DSM5, NANDA and NIC nursing codes, TC251/ISO and IHTSDO, particularly for areas of omission or conflict.
  • Identify examples o added value which can be obtained from integrated use of standard records and controlled secondary use of data.
  • Identify effective initiatives in Europe using mobile (mHealth) technologies including apps, social media and other innovations directed to families
  • Indicate facilitators and barriers to development and maintaining of optimum models of electronic record support to the delivery of primary health care for children, including interface with complex care.

The availability of electronic and e-health tools can facilitate new models and paradigms of care; indeed in the future they can be anticipated to be a cornerstone of effective primary care service provision. E-health can assist individual workers or facilities to operate above their skill level if supported by online knowledge. However, child health EHRs have had a mixed history in the face of pressures to conform to adult dominated e-health strategies with less or no child health functionality.