solve key health research questions
SystmOne is playing a crucial role in a groundbreaking research project
in Bradford. The study, which will run for 20 years, will track 10,000 babies
born in Bradford through childhood and into adult life, and is one of the
world's biggest studies into why some children fall ill while others do not.
The Born in Bradford team will collect information about DNA, lifestyle,
family and the environment in which the children grow up, and look at this
information to disentangle the different causes of ill health, with the intention
of working out how to prevent it. Bradford is the fifth biggest city in the
UK and recent reports have highlighted that the city's health is a cause
for concern. Particularly worrying is that Bradford's infant mortality rate
- the number of babies who die before they reach their first birthday - is
amongst the highest in the country.
The causes of infant mortality and other problems facing Bradford's babies
- such as low birth weight - are not well understood. The Born in Bradford
project aims to find out more, so that it is possible to identify people
at increased risk and maybe offer new treatments. Professor John Wright,
Director of the Bradford Institute for Health Research, says, "Our key aims
are to look at the causes and effects of environmental pollution in relation
to pregnancy, low birth weight, diabetes and childhood obesity. 50% of babies
born in the city are of South Asian origin, so this project gives us a unique
chance to look at an exciting population. By the second year of the project,
we hope to be producing some cutting edge research findings and be encouraging
research in routine data collection across the NHS within the NHS IT systems."
SystmOne is being used in the project as an enabling tool - as a centralised
system, it can be used to follow the children as they grow up and move around,
recording contact in both primary and secondary care, and has vast potential
to improve research capabilities. Professor Wright explains: "The TPP connection
is crucial to what we are trying to do. SystmOne provides us with a fantastic
opportunity to use networked medical records for medical research. This is
the first time it has been done across a whole city. In Bradford, 70% of
GPs use SystmOne, so the majority of these babies will have SystmOne records
anyway. The patient record link between maternity, secondary care and primary
care is very important - it means that all the information about the child
can be recorded in one place. If we can find out, for example, when a child
gets asthma, and we have consent from the family to look at the child's record,
we can then try to identify the cause."
The project is currently recruiting mothers into the programme and is registering
around 20 mothers a day from the maternity unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary.
Professor Wright explains how the team is encouraging people to take part
in the project, "We approach prospective mothers as part of routine clinics
in the maternity unit, we explain the project and ask their consent to take
part. Uptake so far is over 80%. We've had a positive reaction from families
- there's a real sense of people wanting to contribute and to help us answer
some of the big research questions of our time."
It isn't just the children's families who are enthusiastic about the project.
The study has had a lot of interest from politicians and Members of Parliament
including Lord Warner, the Department of Health Minister of State for Reform,
and Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The project also has some high-profile patrons in Imran Khan, former cricketer
and Chancellor of the University of Bradford and Labour Peer Baroness Lockwood.
Professor Wright says, "We've had a lot of good input from national figures
as well as from community engagement. We have some of the country's top academics
and research projects involved in tracking the children's records as they
grow up. We're also working with the BBC and local media to publicise the
project."
The Born in Bradford project is a world first in both its size and its aims
- to pinpoint the causes of disease, and find the key to improving the health
not only of people in Bradford, but also around the world. SystmOne's involvement
will help the team achieve another goal too - that of embedding research
in care and encouraging collection of data for research as part of routine
care.
Click here for more information on Born in Bradford and how you can get involved.
