App to save the date to vaccinate
NSW Health has launched an app for the iPhone and Android devices to help parents remember their child's vaccination schedule and book a GP appointment straight from the app.
As part of NSW Health's new 'Save the Date to Vaccinate' campaign, the new app allows parents to enter their child’s name and birth date, as well as their GP’s contact details, into the app.
The app will then calculate the next immunisation due date and send a series of reminders to prompt the parent to call their GP to schedule an appointment for each immunisation. Parents can make the call straight from the app.
NSW Health director of health protection, Jeremy McAnulty, said the campaign aims to remind parents about the importance of vaccinating children on time, and provides a range of tools and resources to make it easier.
Parents can use the app on their phone or add the child's birth date, name and postcode through the website to create a printable vaccination schedule.
The immunisation website also contains a series of downloadable brochures on the facts about vaccination, dispelling many of the myths promulgated by anti-vaccination campaigners.
All children under seven and enrolled in Medicare are automatically included in the national Australian Childhood Immunisation Register hosted by the Department of Human Services. A vaccination history statement is sent to parents when the child turns 18 months and again at five. This information is also automatically linked to the child's PCEHR.
NSW Health's mobile BlueBook app is also available on the App Store, but it can only be used by parents who are taking part in the trial of the technology through the NSW HealtheNet service for Greater Western Sydney.
That trial is an extension of the work on the electronic BlueBook first funded as part of the GWS Wave 2 eHealth site and involves children born at Blacktown, Nepean, Auburn, Westmead or Blue Mountains Anzac Memorial hospitals.
Posted in Australian eHealth
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I'll follow up for you with NSW Health and DoHA, but trying to get information out of both is always a difficult exercise, to say the least.
Just a suggestion.
Can you reverse the order of comments to show the latest on the top? It would be much comfortable to read.
Many thanks
I think vaccination is ultimately a Commonwealth responsibility (via MLs and GPII etc.) how States are actively involved. Hopefully the National one will be close to the blue book approach - why re-invent th wheel?
These little symbol things are getting harder to understand - or maybe I am turning into a machine.
Thanks for the feedback - it's technically possible but my personal view is comments can be better read in context with each other (and with less scrolling) if they are listed oldest to newest, as we have them presented currently.
We have a website redevelopment on the cards so will review the commenting features as part of this process.