Information systems in neonatology and health planning

Improving the well-being of infants and children is an important public health goal. To reach this objective public health authorities need in-depth knowledge of perinatal statistics as well as the organization of perinatal care. These data must be based on the use of reliable information describing both individual and organizational factors and short and long term outcomes. Several perinatal information sources are available in Italy for analyses aimed at producing evidence for health planning purposes: the National birth registry, Infant mortality registry and Neonatal networks. We describe their structure and summarize some evidence derived from the experiences conducted in the Lazio region.