Australia will begin developing a National Digital Child Health Record from July, to be delivered through My Health Record and the 1800MEDICARE app, giving families, carers and care providers a single longitudinal view of a child's health and development.The project was announced through the 2026-2027 federal budget as an initiative supporting Thriving Kids, a programme for children aged 8 and under with developmental delay and/or autism with low to moderate support needs. WHAT'S IT ABOUTThe National Digital Child Health Record is intended to give families, carers and providers a "single, secure and longitudinal view" of a child's health and development. It will enable providers to identify and respond to developmental concerns earlier, and connect children and their families to appropriate intervention services or further assessment where needed.It will bring together information from state and territory child and maternal health services, primary care providers, paediatricians and allied health professionals. In an interview with Healthcare IT News, the department said the first stage of the project will establish new child health record functionality in My Health Record. It will initially focus on three-year-old health assessments to align with a new Medicare Benefits Schedule item for these health checks from November.Initial implementation will include consultation with end users, states and territories, the health, disability and education sectors and technology vendors to inform the rollout.WHY IT MATTERSAustralia has yet to have a consistent national digital record for early childhood health and development. The department said child health records in Australia remain largely paper-based and vary across states and territories."While information captured at key health and developmental checks is broadly similar, there is variation across states and territories and a lack of standardised approaches, limiting sharing across jurisdictions. Information is not consistently shared between families, GPs and other health and care providers, and is often unavailable at the point of care."This leaves information from key health and developmental assessments fragmented, which risks missing or identifying developmental concerns too late.A more complete view of a child's development over time will enable families and clinicians to identify concerns earlier and connect children to support sooner, the department said.THE LARGER CONTEXTThe Thriving Kids programme is backed by A$2 billion ($1.4 billion) federal funding over five years, with at least A$1.4 billion ($996 million) going to states and territories to deliver services. It is scheduled to roll out progressively from October, before a full implementation by January 2028.According to the department, the digital child record builds on work by the National Children's Digital Health Collaborative, which was led by New South Wales in partnership with the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) from 2017 to 2022. It identified the need for a consistent, digital approach to child health information across Australia.The ADHA has listed the development of the digital child record among its priorities this year, along with work to modernise the national digital health infrastructure and enable secure interoperable exchange of health information.