quick-escape

Feeling unsafe? Find support services   emergency? call 000

Research

Our research

Violence against women and children affects everybody. It impacts on the health, wellbeing and safety of a significant proportion of Australians throughout all states and territories and places an enormous burden on the nation’s economy across family and community services, health and hospitals, income-support and criminal justice systems.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

News and events

ANROWS hosts events as part of its knowledge transfer and exchange work, including public lectures, workshops and research launches. Details of upcoming ANROWS activities and news are available from the list on the right.

ANROWS

About ANROWS

ANROWS was established by the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments of Australia to produce, disseminate and assist in applying evidence for policy and practice addressing violence against women and their children.

KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

Resources

To support the take-up of evidence, ANROWS offers a range of resources developed from research to support practitioners and policy-makers in delivering evidence-based interventions.


Research report

Examining the power of Child-At-Risk electronic medical record (eMR) alerts to share interpersonal violence, abuse and neglect concerns: Do child protection alerts help? Research report

Public health services are uniquely positioned to respond to women and children experiencing violence. Access to relevant information about a client’s safety and wellbeing can enhance the quality and appropriateness of that response.

The Northern New South Wales Local Health District (NNSW LHD) developed a new system to identify and support at-risk children and pregnant women who present to health workers. An alert function was built into the health district’s existing electronic medical record system that offered an immediate notification of child safety and wellbeing concerns when the record is accessed. The purpose of the alert is to encourage health workers to talk to the patient concerned, or in the case of children, to their family, about referrals to support services and to share information with other relevant agencies as appropriate.

This project sought to understand the impact of this Child-At-Risk (CAR) electronic Medical Record (eMR) alert information sharing system on outcomes for women and children. This included understanding:

  • how staff responded to seeing Child-At-Risk alerts on a client’s eMR;
  • the practices that were carried out in response; and
  • the perceived outcomes for clients.

 

 

Publication details

This work is part of the ANROWS Research reports series. ANROWS Research reports (Horizons) are in-depth reports on empirical research produced under ANROWS’s research program.


Authors

ROSEMARIA FLAHERTY
Child Protection Manager, Northern NSW Local Health District

JENNA MEIKSANS
Research Assistant, Australian Centre for Child Protection

STEWART McDOUGALL
Research Assistant, Australian Centre for Child Protection

PROFESSOR FIONA ARNEY
Co-Director, Australian Centre for Child Protection

 


ISBN: 978-1-925372-86-1 (print) | 978-1-925372-88-5 (online)

58 pp.

 

Suggested citation

Flaherty, R., Meiksans, J., McDougall, S., Arney, F. (2018). Examining the power of ChildAt-Risk electronic medical record (eMR) alerts to share interpersonal violence, abuse and neglect concerns: Do child protection alerts help? (Research report, 02/2018). Sydney, NSW: ANROWS.

Back to top