What is BORN?
BORN is an innovative program focused on maternal-child health in the province of Ontario.
BORN’s vision is to provide the knowledge needed for the best possible beginnings for lifelong health. Its mission is to:
- Facilitate and improve care to mothers, children and youth by linking information and providers to address care gaps spanning the spectrum from normal to high acuity and rare conditions.
- Be an authoritative source of accurate, trusted and timely information to monitor, evaluate and plan for the best possible beginnings for life-long health.
- Provide scientific and technical leadership for Ontario’smaternal, child and youth health system through the support of research and innovation.
- Mobilize information and expertise to optimize care and contribute to a high-performing healthcare system, improving the lives of individual mothers and children.
How does BORN work
BORN records information about the pregnancy, birth and early childhood experiences in cooperation with healthcare providers. 100% of birthing hospitals in the province have committed to contributing information to BORN. The information that is gathered can be used by health care providers, policy-makers and researchers to facilitate and improve the provision of maternal-child care. This is done through the streamlining of five existing maternal-child health databases to create an efficient and extensive information source that covers the entire continuum of care for pregnant mothers and newborns. As the authoritative source of health care information, BORN is committed to improving the quality of care in the province of Ontario through an established system of audit and feedback, with input from the leading experts in the field.
Why is BORN important?
BORN is a first-of-its-kind information system, providing the most extensive maternal-child health information in the world.
The areas of focus for BORN Ontario are Maternal Newborn Outcomes / Midwifery, Congenital Anomalies Surveillance, Newborn Screening, and Prenatal Screening. The BORN system can be used to identify situations in which appropriate care has not been received, facilitate continuous improvement of healthcare delivery tools, determine where outcomes are discrepant with norms and raise alerts, provide benchmarks for healthcare providers to improve care, create knowledge for continuously improving care, and create reports that provide comprehensive and timely information.
BORN can also be used effectively for research purposes by providing extensive longitudinal data for analysis. BORN allows researchers to track province-wide health trends and examine health effects and outcomes from early pregnancy onward. Ultimately, BORN will grow with children as they continue to interact with the healthcare system while they grow and develop, enabling extensive improvement of provincial facilitation and provision of health care.
BORN and the Personal Health Information Protection ACT
BORN Ontario focuses on providing acknowledged excellence in privacy and security for the data it holds. BORN is a Prescribed Registry under Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act allowing BORN to collect, use and disclose personal health information for purposes of facilitating or improving the provision of health care. It also requires that BORN maintains an extremely high standard of privacy protection, and that the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario review BORN’s policies and practices to ensure they are in accordance with privacy legislation and data system standards.
Who runs BORN?
The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in Ontario is providing the funding required to support BORN in delivering the necessary technology and knowledge required for the initiative. The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario has provided the founding support and sponsorship of BORN. They continue to provide the governance structure and administrative supports required to make the organization successful.
Please see www.BORNOntario.ca for more information.