The Child health monitoring information system is under development in Lithuania

According to the Institute of Hygiene, in 2010–2014 the number of sick children aged from 0 to 17 started growing rapidly. More than three new illness cases per child are registered in a year (in 2014, 1963525 new cases were registered). Children, who make up 20 per cent of the country’s population, are the most vulnerable part of the society; therefore, their health requires particular attention.

Appropriate health monitoring is one of the most important components of a good health system. Now the Institute of Hygiene implements the project “Development and Implementation of the Child Health Monitoring Information System for Systematic Monitoring of the Children’s Health Condition and Purposeful Health Policy Making” under the Programme No. LT11 “Public Health Initiatives” of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009-2014.

“Under the project we aim to develop a national child health monitoring information system, which will enable to monitor children’s health on a regular basis, evaluate the amount and nature of health disorders and identify risk groups and trends of changes. Furthermore, implemented child health monitoring information system will enable to plan appropriate measures of prevention of health disorders, evaluate their results and impact, ensure targeted and efficient formation of the children and youth’s health policy both at the national and local levels,” Head of the Department of Registers of the Health Information Centre of the Institute of Hygiene Šarūnas Alasauskas said.

The project will ensure electronic transmission of a child’s health certificate to the institutions of general education; therefore, public health care specialists working therein will not have to enter repeatedly information displayed in a paper form manually. Thus the time for more efficient children’s health care in the institutions of general education and implementation of doctors’ recommendations will be saved. Mr. Šarūnas Alasauskas says that childhood is the first page of life: whatever you write down on that page, you will read it forever.

Under the project public health care specialists working in the institutions of general education will be provided not only with up-to-date analysis tool, but also with hardware necessary to work with implemented child’s health monitoring information system.   

On 5 November 2015, the Institute of Hygiene organized the Conference “Children’s Health Monitoring Issues”, where the most important aspects of children’s health care and monitoring as well as the capabilities of the child health monitoring information system were presented. The specialists from public health bureaus and the Ministry of Health as well as chief doctors of municipalities and other specialists from municipalities related to health monitoring attended the Conference to discuss the developed model of the child’s health monitoring information system. Mr. Šarūnas Alasauskas says that based on the statistical information compiled in the information system, analysis and interpretation thereof, it will be possible to foresee appropriate measures of prevention of health disorders. Based on scientific evidence that when applying appropriate preventive measures it is possible to reduce morbidity; thereby, reducing direct and indirect costs of the State budget of the Republic of Lithuania.

It is planned to implement the project by the end of 2016.

More information about the project you can find here