Significance of Vaccination for Pre-term Babies

Preterm babies are premature babies that are born before 37 completed weeks of gestation. There are sub-categories of preterm birth, based on gestational age:

• Extremely preterm (<28 weeks) 
• Very preterm (28 to <32 weeks) 
• Moderate to late preterm (32 to <37 weeks)

Source: Kevin Frayer / Associated Press

According to a WHO report, every year an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm (before 37 completed weeks of gestation), and this number is rising with every year. Preterm birth complications are the leading cause of death among children under 5 years of age, responsible for nearly 1 million deaths in 2013. There are various measures or guidelines illustrated by WHO on how to improve pre-term birth outcome; one of which is achieving full immunization against preventable childhood diseases. 

Points to keep in mind 

• All of these babies should be given routinely vaccinations. They should get all of the immunizations on the standard schedule as followed for term babies.
• Administering vaccinations are always safe whether given to term or pre-term and low birth weight babies. 

Why vaccination is so important? 

• Saves a Child’s Life – Timely vaccination ensures a child being protected from various diseases like Diphtheria, Hepatitis B, Measles, Meningitis, etc. Certain diseases like Polio, Smallpox have been eradicated with frequent and timely vaccination being administered.
• Protects not just your Child but the entire Community
• Saves Time and Money related to Healthcare Cost
• Protects Future Generations 

Keeping in mind, all of the above benefits it is very imperative that you as a Healthcare Provider, remind a parent to get their child timely vaccination. We understand that today with such heavy and hectic schedule it becomes difficult to remind each and every patient, but what if we say that technology is here for your rescue? 

What if you adopt a technology in such a way that it automatically reminds each and every parent of your practice in your name for timely vaccination of their child even in the cases of delayed vaccination? Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? If you want to know more on how can technology help you to be updated on your Child’s Health do contact us on ichr@oxyent.com or 011-40644232 for further queries and we’ll be more than happy to help!

How will Implementing an Automated Child Health Record benefit my Hospital?

The Healthcare Industry has evolved rapidly in the past few years; adopting state-of-art infrastructure, robotics, information systems, IoT devices, etc. With such advancements, the next step for hospitals is to focus on adopting technology for each specialized departments like Maternity, Pediatrics, Cardiology, etc. and sharing the captured data with their patients so as to maintain a healthy doctor-patient relationship, providing credibility and retaining the patients for long-term. 

In Pediatrics today, the child health records in the hospitals are handed over to the parents as paper based records which are not formally maintained. Parents in most of the cases either misplace these records or do not carry them each time when visiting the doctor for administering the vaccination to the child. Hospitals do not maintain OPD record for vaccination and hence there is no way of recovering the vaccination history, leading to confusion and panic.

What can a Hospital do to minimize this?

Every hospital can adapt to a system that keeps track of a child’s vaccination schedule, which helps parents to get timely reminders and notifications of vaccinations, digitally plot growth charts including both Fenton & WHO chart so that it is easy for doctors to educate parents about their child’s growth and give instructions as and when needed.

With this in mind, we introduce everyone to iCHR - India’s 1st Hospital linked Integrated Child Health Record – a revolutionary concept of automated vaccination record and growth monitoring, for your precious child. iCHR is up and running currently in Fortis La Femme, Jaypee Hospital, Paras Hospital, Bhagat Chandra Hospital & Alchemist Hospital. Our goal with iCHR is to attain the sustainable development goals and reduce the child mortality rate. It helps in keeping track of all the vaccinations according to the schedule recommended by the Indian Association of Pediatrics. The application offers the following benefits:

Benefits for Doctors

• Cloud based patient management system.
• Maintaining the visit history of patients which saves record keeping and maintenance cost.
• Paperless and secured vaccination record available anytime, anywhere in the world. 
• Brand documentation of vaccine.
• Digital plotting of growth parameters on WHO and Fenton Charts.

Benefits for Parents

• Paperless and secured Vaccination Record available anytime, anywhere on your mobile phone.
• Interactive growth chart on parent’s mobile phone to track growth of preterm and term babies.
• Easy to understand.
• Each hospital visit details on tap of a button.
• Automatic vaccination due date calculator.
• Timely vaccination reminders and notifications for the parents.

Lastly through iCHR we are helping a hospital to enhance the retainer-ship with their patient through timely vaccination reminders, notifications for promotional and announcements by the hospital, which helps in engaging the patient not just within the hospital premises, but also outside the hospital. If this sounds interesting and you are still not on board, contact us to know more on ichr@oxyent.com or 011-40644232 for further queries and we’ll be more than happy to help!

Malnutrition in India and how iCHR is helping

Birth of a child is perhaps one of life’s most treasured moments for every parent. Protecting the child’s health and ensuring proper nutrition and growth are the only important goal for any parent. In July 2015, the Government of India, released malnutrition figures from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) data that was collected in 2013-14. According to this report:

• 29.4% of children (aged less than three years) fall in underweight category (low in weight for their age),
• 15% were wasted (low weight for their height)
• 38.7% were stunted (low in height for age)

Introduction to Malnutrition

The Dorland Medical Dictionary defines Malnutrition or Malnourishment as a condition that results from unbalanced diet causing various health problems. This unbalanced diet results from eating a diet in which nutrients are either not enough or are too much. Simply put, malnutrition can be categorized as under-nutrition (Underweight) and over-nutrition (Obesity). Malnutrition is caused by various conditions or circumstances like:

• Poor Diet
• Food Shortages
• Food Prices and Irregular Food Distribution
• Lack of Breastfeeding
• Lack of monitoring vital parameters of child such as: age, height, weight and head circumference

Malnourishment at an early age leads to reduced physical and mental development of the child. Hence, the first two years of a child’s life are critical and is termed as “Window of Opportunity”. There are various parameters to identify malnutrition in a child, the most crucial being monitoring the vital parameters up to 12 years of age:

• Head circumference
• Height
• Weight

How iCHR is helping?

iCHR is the India’s 1st Hospital linked Integrated Child Health Record – a revolutionary concept of automated vaccination record and growth monitoring, for your precious child. Our goal with iCHR is to attain the sustainable development goals and reduce the child mortality rate. It helps in keeping track of all the vital parameters up to 12 years of age responsible for monitoring the growth of a child such as:

• Head circumference
• Height 
• Weight
• BMI 

The parameters are plotted on WHO based charts, which help the child’s pediatrician to analyze any risk of malnutrition, and the statistics can also be used by ICDS for future studies. 

Case Study

Fortis Le Femme, being the major implementer of iCHR application gave insight on patients whose growth improved immensely with the utilization of the growth charts, namely:

• Fenton Growth Chart for Preterm Babies
• WHO Growth Chart for Term Babies

The chart below depicts the Weight versus Age vital parameters for a preterm baby on the Fenton Growth Chart which illustrates that growth of the baby at 46 weeks falls under 3 centile which is a bit on the lower side. With proper instructions and guidelines of the pediatrician, the growth of the child can be improved. 

Fenton Chart – Weight versus Age

The chart below depicts the Weight versus Age vital parameters for a term baby on the WHO Growth Chart illustrating that growth of the baby from 2 months to 15 months of age falls below 3 centile which is on the lower side. 

WHO Growth Chart – Weight versus Age

In both the above cases, with timely intervention and proper instructions of the pediatrician improved the growth of the child and helped the parents to come out of fear of retarded growth for their child.

We at iCHR are profound & proficient in providing the platform at your doorstep starting from installation, training the end users, support and maintenance of the application. We make sure that you do not fall in traps & make the best of decisions for the hospital and the patients. If this sounds interesting and you are still not on board, contact us to know more on ichr@oxyent.com or 011-40644232 for further queries and we’ll be more than happy to help!