Are you one of those IT savvy mums or dads who highly depend on your phone to capture memories and document down every single thing that happens in your children’s life? Yup, that’s us as well.
Being a mother of two preschool-aged boys, I use my phone every single day of my life, especially for any enquiries I have about my children’s health development. Whether its their first tooth, colicky remedies, how much weight to gain after birth or even tips on healthier recipes when I wanted to wean the elder son off breastmilk, I used the internet liked a bible for motherhood.
Recently, I was introduced to a portal launched by the Ministry of Health and Health Promotion Board, the first one-stop online health information and services portal and mobile application in Singapore — HealthHub!
A total game changer for paper and pen recordings, we can now easily log on to the portal via our SingPass either on the website or phone app to keep track of our key medical records and learn how to keep ourselves healthy with the localised and citizen-centric health content available right at our fingertips! Another benefit other than tracking our own records is that we also can get easy access to our children’s medical records and even our other family members too!
By downloading the HealthHub phone app, we can receive notifications for our upcoming health appointments and get reminders for our child’s immunisation checks as well!
It’s a great on-the-go companion for parents to healthier living!
Can’t wait to know more about the various features from this one-stop online health portal, follow us in this parent-friendly user guide on the HealthHub app (info applies for children below 6 years old as we have a 3-year-old toddler and 3-month-old baby!).
SINGPASS LOGIN
First and foremost, to access our children’s health records under the “Children’s Health” section from the Home page under MYHEALTH category, we need to use our SingPass password. This will give you access to your own health records as well as your child’s records. Our health records include immunisations, lab test results, screenings, discharge information, health vitals and medications.
Then create a 4-digit password which you will use to get back to the login page without having to re-login with your SingPass password. This will only happen if you need to use other apps on the phone and want to go back to the HealthHub app later.
Next, enter your children’s NRIC numbers and add them into your app so you can access their health records including milestones, immunisations, vaccinations, growth charts, birth information and oral health records!
CHILD IMMUNISATION & ORAL HEALTH RECORDS
To know: Under the above two sections, all their past records can be tracked via the National Immunisation Registry (NIR) for vaccinations for those whose born on or after January 1996 and the Health Promotion Board’s School Dental Services on and after 2007 for oral health records.
Previously, our toddler underwent a mini surgery for his decayed tooth and with the oral health records on the app, we are able to track when he had his last visit as well as his oral status. What impressed us was that it also reminded us that he has a high risk for caries and we need to encourage him to continue his good oral habits!
MILESTONES
Rather than searching online for what milestones toddler and infant should meet each month, we can do a quick reference with the milestone check list on what they should be doing or should be learning to do at each age.
The checklist is separated into 4 age-based categories - personal social, fine motor-adaptive, language and gross motor. It is similar to the Health Booklet Checklist that has been issued since 1984 to every child born in Singapore to record the child’s important health information such as the milestones development. The app now enables parents to have a clearer picture of the different skills our children should be achieving for their individual age.
GROWTH CHARTS
The growth charts section is something we personally find impressive as it not only enables you to key in your children’s head circumference, height and weight, it can also calculate your little one’s BMI and chart out their percentile for you! With the app, we can keep track of the growth charts until they are 18 years old.
CHILD BIRTH INFORMATION
Under this section, all we need to do is enter the duration of gestation (number of weeks before your baby was born), weight at birth, length at birth and head circumference for the calculations of the growth charts.
APPOINTMENTS
To keep track of our upcoming appointments, especially my toddler’s dental check ups and my infant’s vaccinations, all the records are shown in a list under the “agenda” or “month” categories. Also, we can add the appointment details in our phone calendars, so there is definitely no excuse for missed appointments anymore!
OVERALL
On the whole, I sincerely feel that as a nation, sharing information across the country on the citizen’s health status has never been so easy and seamless! This enables busy parents liked us to efficiently schedule and plan out our daily hustle.
With this new one-stop health portal, we are definitely enjoying the accessibility and transparency that it brings, as now we have a useful on-the-go companion to keep track of our health as well as our children or family members!
So if you are looking to digitally manage your children’s health information and records, head over to www.healthhub.sg/childrenhealth or download the HealthHub mobile app now!