Part of Child Health Interoperability (CHI) implementation guide for health visiting services
Professional contacts message
Professional contacts message
The professional contact message purpose is to establish which agencies or health services have a responsibility for a child or hold a record for that child, so that all professionals involved in the network of care around a child, know which other agencies are involved.
This allows for a more efficient and quicker transfer of care process, as well as giving Healthcare Services the means to identify the correct service to contact where needed. Professional Contact supports the assurance of safe and high-quality care.
There is no current formal process for healthcare services to notify others of their professional responsibility for a child, or that they are no longer responsible for a child.
- healthcare services become aware of a child under the following circumstances
- birth – a child is born
- moving – child moves into the healthcare area of responsibility from another area
- new registration – child is registered for the first time & resides in the healthcare service’ s area of responsibility
- child is adopted and a new record is created in the residential area (child as a person is not registered for the first time but the child gets a new blank record)
This message needs to be received by Personal Health Records (PHR) systems as well as clinical systems. Supplier systems will be modified to trigger the message on registration of a child record.
The intention is that as soon as a CHIS or health visiting system registers a child (initiates a record for them/claims responsibility), this triggers publication of the professional contact message to subscribers
Data fields available in this message
This table lists the data fields in professional contacts.
| DCH FHIR event | Description |
| Organisation | The organisation of the care professional /team assigned to the child |
| Team | The team associated with the care professional assigned to the child |
| Name | The care professional assigned to the child |
| Role | The professional role of the individual has in relation to the child |
| Speciality | The speciality of the professional (for example health visiting, school nursing etc) |
| Key worker | Whether the individual professional is noted as a key worker for the child |
| Care professional association | The type of association of the care professional or team assigned to the child |
| Contact details | The contact details of the care professional or team assigned to the child |
| Start date | The date that the care professional or team was assigned to the child |
| End date | The end date the care professional or team assigned to the child |
| Reason | The reason an association has been created or ended |
What benefits can be achieved
This table helps you to identify the potential benefits of professional contacts through NEMS. The level of benefits depends on your current process.
| Do you currently? | With NEMS | Which means | What may be impacted | Possible measures before and after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ever not know which CHIS previous held responsibility for a child who moves into your area? | The professional contact will show previous CHIS and heath visitors | You will know which CHIS or health visitors are responsible and who had responsibility for a child |
Time taken Timeliness of information |
Time taken to find contact information |
| Ever not know which Health Visiting Service was responsible for a moved in child? | The professional contact will show previous CHIS and health visitors | Removes the need to search and previous health visitors |
Time taken Timeliness of information Improved availability of information at the point of care |
Time taken |
Last edited: 1 October 2020 9:32 am