An innovative digital maternity tool is providing more personalised support for expecting and new mothers on the Gold Coast.
The Maternity Assessment Questionnaire (MAQ) developed by Gold Coast Health asks women about their health and experiences using online health assessments at five points during pregnancy and up to six months after birth.
The tool delivers personalised care pathways based on a women’s responses.
“It was very simple, easy to use and I could do it from the comfort of my home,” mother-of-two Jacqueline said.
“When I went into my consultations, my midwife was already up to speed on how I was feeling and I didn’t have to keep repeating myself each appointment.”
Jacqueline said the tool helped her feel less anxious and more supported.
“I was stressed and didn’t know what to expect going into my second pregnancy,” she said.
“I had some breastfeeding struggles previously, but I got to share them with this tool and my midwife was quick to help me. I felt like the midwife really cared about me and it was a really positive experience.”
The answers provide clinicians valuable insights, alerts and notifications in real-time. Responses trigger the delivery of customised information and resources, while alerting treating teams if extra support is needed; enabling maternity staff to provide personalised and responsive precision-based care.
“Midwives found it clinically useful for prompting discussions and care planning,” Assistant Director of Midwifery Research Dr Valerie Slavin said.
“It’s so important to provide pregnant and postpartum mums with as much support as possible, and MAQ is a key asset for this.
"We’re setting the standard for maternity care across Australia with this.”
This also reduces the time spent on administrative tasks during maternity consults and creates more time for patient-centred care, further supporting vulnerable women including those that are culturally and linguistically diverse.
Data gathered from a year of pilot phase testing showed that 100 per cent of users had a positive experience and helped tailor their individual needs at appointments.
The $1 million initiative is supported by the seed funding of $200,000 from the Office of the Chief Midwife Officer as part of the Queensland Birth Strategy, Gold Coast Health and the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) in collaboration with Griffith University.
MAQ was co-developed by Gold Coast Health clinicians over past eight years, with feedback provided from consumer and clinician advisory groups.
It’s the first tool in Australia to fully align with the principles set out by the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) standards to improve patients’ quality of life. This adds to already established systems like PREMs (Patient-Reported Experience Measures) and PROMs (Patient-Reported Outcome Measures) used in healthcare to collect feedback from patients about their care journey.
