Greater Manchester Combined Authority uses Mendix to build Early Starters App, helping children have a better start in life

The combined authority digitalises paper-based progress assessments and uses data analytics to target healthcare services for vulnerable children

LONDON, U.K. – OCTOBER 21 – Mendix, a Siemens business and global leader in low-code application development for the enterprise, today announced that it has helped the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) to build an application that connects early education professionals such as health visitors and school health services to better support families with young children in the Greater Manchester area. The app, titled Early Years, was launched as part of the city-region’s Digital Blueprint initiative, which seeks to leverage digital transformation capabilities to better serve citizens.

Ensuring Vulnerable Children Get the Care They Need

With Greater Manchester being home to over 898,000 children and young people¹, the GMCA needed to have an efficient way of ensuring that vulnerable children in the area received the necessary care and support. To achieve this, the GMCA created a system for data collection and management by digitising the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) forms, which are used to screen socio-emotional development milestones of infants, toddlers, and kindergarteners. Previously these forms were filled out manually by parents and health visitors, making the process time-consuming and inefficient, as well as making the sharing of information between healthcare professionals challenging.

An Application fit for the Modern World

To create the Early Years web and mobile application, the GMCA worked with Objectivity, a Mendix partner. The new system, built with the Mendix low-code software development platform, was created as a responsive web page and a hybrid mobile application, which works on both iOS and Android. This enables the children’s caregivers to fill out digital ASQ assessments online from the comfort of their own homes, with the results being automatically made available to healthcare professionals. Low-code is a visual development approach that enables developers of varying experience levels to collaborate, quickly building targeted applications for web and mobile, using drag-and-drop components and model-driven logic through a graphical user interface.

The application also allows health visitors to capture digital data and share it amongst the appropriate Early Years professionals as a given child moves through the different stages of the Early Years process. This provides professionals with the ability to view consolidated information on the child from other public sector organisations, making the process more efficient and, most importantly, providing a holistic view of the child’s development. As a result of the app, the GMCA has been able to digitise 42 previously paper-based forms throughout the health assessment process, with the application providing user traffic capability of more than one million people.

Councillor Sean Fielding, GMCA Employment, Skills and Digital Lead said: “In Greater Manchester we are dedicated to investing in digital transformation that benefits our residents. The new Early Years Application is helping to join-up our public services to help parents and carers access the support they need quickly and efficiently. The Early Years application has enabled us to influence real change in the community, as it has made it faster and more convenient for healthcare professionals to help vulnerable children and focus on the welfare of the children who need the support most.”

Nick Ford, VP Product Marketing and Community, Mendix, says: “Digital transformation in the public sector has never been so important, with many demands on councils to streamline services and remove inefficient and outdated processes. Working with Mendix and Objectivity, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has leveraged low-code technology to provide strategic value to the organisation helping to benefit end-users and the community they support.”

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¹ https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/media/2115/gmca-children-young-peoples-plan-2019-2022.pdf

About Mendix

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