The Challenge
When a child is born in NSW, parents receive a My Personal Health Record Book (often called the Blue Book), which becomes a record of their child’s health and development information.
This paper-based book is used by parents, carers, midwives and early childhood nurses, doctors and other health professionals to record the child’s health and development information during early childhood. This is a record of key health checks, vaccinations, developmental milestones, and questions for parents to consider before each health check.
Recording information in the paper-based book takes time for both clinicians and parents. Some parents report finding it difficult to use or forget to take their book to appointments.
With the majority of a child’s brain structure developing in the first 2000 days of their life from pregnancy to age 5, it is important that parents and clinicians have the information and tools they need to support children during this time.
The Plan
The NSW Digital Baby Book is part of a NSW whole-of-government initiative, to give all children in NSW the best start in life. It aims to improve the lives and experiences of parents and families in the first 2000 days of their child’s life and forms part of the First 2000 Days Implementation Strategy 2020-2025.
The NSW Digital Baby Book is in early development, with a focus on designing a solution that will align with other NSW Health state-based platforms, offering parents and carers easy access to a digital record of their child’s health and development information.
The NSW Digital Baby Book will provide a digital alternative to the existing paper-based My Personal Health Record (Blue Book). This aims to support parents and clinicians with consistent and accessible information they can rely on, instead of incomplete or mislaid paper records.
The NSW Digital Baby Book is planned to include:
- Access to a record of a child’s vaccinations and health and development information
- Schedules and reminders of a child’s health and development checks and vaccinations
- Questions for parents to help with early identification of developmental delays
- Information and resources for parents
- Future integration with other clinical systems and care settings.
eHealth NSW is collaborating with parents and carers, NSW Health experts and NSW Government partners to develop the NSW Digital Baby Book.
The Outcome
Access to a digital health record from birth will empower parents to be partners in their children’s care, with their healthcare providers. The information recorded will help clinicians predict and understand the long-term health outcomes of children as they progress throughout their lifetime.
The Benefits
The NSW Digital Baby Book will be designed to:
- Give parents easy access to, and control of, their child’s health information
- Empower parents to be partners in their children’s care with their healthcare providers
- Help parents track when their child’s health and development checks and vaccinations are due
- Increase the number of children having health and development checks at the recommended milestones
- Support clinical decision-making and the early identification of developmental delays
- Enable families to access earlier interventions to support their child’s development
- Support parents, carers and their child’s clinicians to act early to improve a child's health over their lifetime
- Help predict the potential long-term health outcomes of children.
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