14 May 2009
Health information about all Jersey’s children has been successfully transferred to a new IT system that will make record-keeping more efficient and ensure children get their immunisations at the correct time.
Staff from the States Child Health Team worked intensively for three months to transfer 30,000 medical records to a new secure web-based system, which went live on 26 January 2009. Called ‘CarePlus’, it will follow children from birth through their school years and keeps track of any developmental checks, immunisations, check-ups or appointments they have had.
In future the new system will enable the Health and Social Services Department to work more closely with GPs so that parents receive timely reminder letters when their child’s immunisations and boosters are due. This more efficient way of handling the information will mean children don’t miss out on health protection measures.
‘CarePlus’ replaces a system called ‘Swift’, which had been in place since 1994. Both are produced by McKesson Corporation, once of the world’s largest healthcare services companies. Health professionals in Jersey have welcomed the upgrade.
Dr Linda Diggle, Head of Healthcare Programmes said: ‘When I learnt that the new McKesson child health product had been selected to replace the ageing child health system, I was extremely pleased. Those who work in immunisation know that McKesson produce systems that work extremely well therefore it makes absolute sense to stick with a tried and tested provider who we have confidence in.’
When children are born in Jersey or move to the Island, they will be registered onto CarePlus and a detailed, centralised bank of their pre-school and school health information will be built up over a period of years. The data now on the system dates back to 1987.
The new child health information system is the first part of a wider project to update how medical records are kept in Jersey. The total cost of introducing CarePlus was £201,900.
gov.je