Specialized Pediatric Growth Charts For Electronic Health Record Systems: the example of Down syndrome

Electronic health record (EHR) systems serving pediatric populations typically incorporate growth charts to help healthcare providers monitor children’s growth. Currently, easily implementable growth charts are not available for subpopulations having growth that differs from the population as a whole, such as children with Down syndrome. This manuscript describes an approach for generating subpopulation-specific growth charts meeting requirements for implementation into EHR systems, using as an example weights for children with Down syndrome. Gender-specific growth curves were generated from 2358 weight values obtained from 331 patients with Down syndrome from July 2001 until March 2005. The project generated printable curves and computable data tables formatted according to growth chart standards set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to facilitate implementation into EHR systems. This approach will help developers implementing growth charts and provides actual data tables for monitoring growth in children with Down syndrome.