System C has won full accreditation from the Perinatal Institute (PI) for the integration of customised growth charts within Medway Maternity, the company’s specialist maternity software.

The use of customised growth charts to measure a baby’s growth in the womb is one of the key interventions required in the official ‘Saving Babies’ Lives’ guidance, published in 2016. System C is one of the first maternity system suppliers to be accredited by the PI.

The accreditation means GROW charts will now be available to all Medway Maternity users signed up to the PI’s GAPplus programme as an integral part of the software.

Medway Maternity is currently used by 21 NHS Trusts, in 11 instances as a standalone maternity system and in 10 others as part of a hospital-wide Medway EPR.

This integration brings significant benefits in terms of clinical safety, whilst increasing efficiency through the reduction of duplicate processes.

“Restricted fetal growth is now widely understood to be a significant cause of stillbirth and low birth weight babies. Early recognition of restricted growth will alert the midwives and obstetric team and lead to early intervention,” said Louise Caney, System C product manager for Medway Maternity.

The customised charts are created within Medway Maternity using the mother’s personal characteristics (height, weight and so on), already entered as part of the patient record, to plot growth rate against customised centiles.

Fundal height and fetal weight are plotted automatically on the charts, reducing the chance of human error. Specific information entered directly into the software at antenatal appointments automatically generates a customised growth chart image in the system, where it is available to all authorised professionals involved in the mother’s care.

“There are also significant benefits in terms of audit trails. Each Trust will be able to see how many of their babies are growth-restricted and how frequently the growth restrictions are being detected antenatally,” Ms Caney added.

Mandy Williams, the PI’s programme manager for health informatics, welcomed this development. “We are delighted to be able to have accredited System C’s integration. This is a really important step in terms of helping midwives and doctors to follow best practice and will help ensure high quality, safe maternity care,” she said.

System C’s specialist maternity solution provides a complete electronic record of a woman’s obstetric journey from early pregnancy to post-natal care and discharge. It can be provided as a standalone system, or integrated with a whole-hospital electronic patient record (EPR) system, including Medway EPR.

Unlike many maternity systems, Medway Maternity is available off-line to community midwives, allowing them to update a woman’s electronic record at the point of care in the community. 

It also provides Business Intelligence tools for automated reporting to meet statutory, national and local requirements and for measuring outcomes.