Endocrine Abstracts

JOINT759

Background: Growth monitoring is a fundamental aspect of routine paediatric care. Accurate charting, incorporating the use of appropriate reference data, is vital for clinical care to guide decisions to investigate and treat growth disorders. Electronic growth charting software can record and plot anthropometric data and generate standard deviation scores (SDS) for age and sex to aid clinical decision-making. We assessed the availability and types of electronic growth charts, reference data used and functionality of software across the United Kingdom (UK).

Methods: Paediatric endocrinologists and subspecialty trainees were invited via e-mail and the British Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes newsletter to participate in an online survey on availability of growth charts and the functionality of available electronic growth charting software. Invitations to participate in the survey were distributed to secondary care paediatricians within each regional network by subspecialty trainees or paediatric endocrinology consultants. Where possible, commercial software developers were contacted to determine product specifications.

Results: 100 responses were received between June and November 2024 from 82 different hospitals with wide geographical coverage across the UK. All 22 UK specialist paediatric endocrine centres responded. 72.0% of hospitals had electronic growth charting software available. 26.8% used only paper growth charts and one respondent reported having no access to any growth charts. All 22 specialist paediatric endocrine centres used electronic growth charts, compared with 61.7% of secondary care centres (P = 0.0006). Twenty-eight different software packages were in use: locally developed software (n = 16 hospitals (27%)), commercially available products (n = 12 different in 43 hospitals). The growth reference data used was inconsistent: 41 (67%), 8 (13%) and 3 (5%) respondents reported using the UK-WHO data, the British 1990 reference data and WHO child growth standards, respectively. Nine (15%) respondents did not know the reference data used. Respondents using the same commercially available product frequently reported using different reference data. Additional functionality, for example, plotting body mass index and head circumference, ability to calculate SDS, prematurity adjustment, plotting of mid-parental height/target centile range and condition-specific charts were variably reported to be available even between users of the same commercially available software, and was frequently inconsistent with specifications reported by the software developers.

Conclusions: Electronic growth charts are not universally available to UK paediatricians. Where available, user knowledge of the growth reference data and software functionality was highly variable. We speculate these inconsistencies hinder comprehensive assessment of growth and may adversely affect clinical decision-making and patient care.