Source: New Zealand Ministry of Health
This publication is an update to the original standard first published in May 2020. At the time of publication we indicated the intent to undertake this review prior to finalising the standard. The update incorporates both an enhanced use of SNOMED CT codes, as well as changes to data elements identified during the sector use of the standard and system.
Use of the standard ensures that information related to maternity care is consistently recorded contributing to high-quality care of women/people and babies. The data set can be shared to support continuity of care between providers and communication with whānau and family. The structured and coded information enables meaningful benchmarking of services and other analytics.
The standard defines the minimum data set to be recorded by maternity care providers. This covers community-based and hospital midwives, general practitioners, obstetricians, other medical specialists and their support staff. The maternity care summary centres on the pregnant/birthing/postnatal woman/person and includes administrative and clinical information about the pregnancy, labour and birth, and baby(ies). The standard covers the whole maternity journey, including the early postnatal period (up to 6 weeks following the birth).
Adoption roadmap
The Ministry’s national maternity programme will lead adoption of this standard by maternity care providers and their industry partners as part of the Maternity Action Plan 2019–23.
Commencing in 2020, an upgrade to the National Maternity Record system to meet the new requirements of the standard has been developed and rolled out to users, including MidCentral, Counties Manukau and Tairāwhiti DHBs.
An HL7® FHIR® application programming interface (API) is also being developed in the same timeframe to enable other systems to integrate with the National Maternity Record and contribute data to it.
Rollout of the standard to all maternity care providers and Well Child providers commenced in July 2020 and will continue until July 2023, when full adoption will be complete.
