Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Ante natal care goes virtual at Caboolture

I am always interested to hear of online initiatives in healthcare, especially in the maternity services. So I pricked up my ears when midwife Jillian Clarke told me about a new website that has just gone live.  

The Caboolture Hospital Maternity and Newborn Service (Queensland, Australia) has just launched a website that allows pregnant women and parents to register online with the hospital and gives access to up to date information: http://www.health.qld.gov.au/caboolture/maternity

It is my understanding that eventually, the website will provide the ability for women to have live chats with midwives. 


What interests me is....what drives pregnant women to use online chat facilities, such as websites like this, or Facebook pages, rather than phoning a hospital or talking to a midwife? What do you think?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

There is another support chatroom for cancer patients from Cancer Support Online where you can chat freely with other people living with cancer, swap stories, share advice, help one another and develop new friendships.

http://www.healthyaction.com.au/tribulus.html

starpath said...

Some women 'didn't want to bother' their midwife and some midwives were not readily available to women.
Some midwives protected their mobile number and gave instructions for the number not be given to women.
Women did not know if their problem or concern was important
or not ('not knowing normal'). Women really felt supported by midwives who used text messaging communication (from a case study of 55 women).
'She was always there for me' (Teen-aged woman who used text-messaging communication with her midwife).