Support for neonatal and infant close monitoring (NICM)

Growth Charts
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Hi there, I hope you are doing well. May I know if the RCPCH Digital Growth Chart supports neonatal and infant close monitoring (NICM)? Our Trust users forwarded this URL to me and asked if the UK-WHO digital growth chart (or another type of chart) supports it:

UK-WHO growth charts - neonatal and infant close monitoring (NICM) | RCPCH

Thank you very much for your assistance.

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Thanks Vincent for getting in touch. Yes the api and charts do support this.

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Thanks Simon. Could you provide me with more details? Does the UK-WHO chart automatically render relevant percentiles for pre-mature babies? Are there specific API parameters or chart options we need to set for that? Thanks.

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Sure Vincent no problem
The RCPCH API offers the same as what you get with a paper chart, but arguably more useful. The parameters you pass in include:

  • date of birth
  • date of measurement
  • measurement type
  • value of measurement in standardised units (eg height/length is always cm)
  • sex
  • gestation (in weeks and days)

The parameters are in the API spec but the key data are summarised above. The gestation is optional - if you don’t provide it, we assume 40 week term infant. If you do provide it, we return two sets of values: sds and centiles for corrected age, and sds/centile for chronological age. The only thing that sets the NCIM charts apart from the rest of the charts is the scale. The underlying data are the same. Most electronic charts simply put the paper charts on a screen, with the same cut offs, but our charts crop the view port to the data provided. So if you provide growth measurements for an infant say born at 33 weeks and they are now 3 years old, we would show you a chart for all those data points, even if the datapoints cross an age threshold where historically you would have had to start a new type of chart. For example:

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We also offer a life-course view which zooms out to view 0-20y and of course we offer zoom and pan. Clinicians have specifically asked for this so they can have conversations with families about projected final height and so on.

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Most of the parameters otherwise are optional and relate to styling. The documentation should cover most use cases but please let me know if there is something missing.

Are you a clinician or a developer? Or both? What is the use case you are interested in particularly? If it is the babies that you are looking for a solution for, BadgerNet have already done an implementation of our charts so hopefully that says that the charts are good for neonates.

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