Healthy Trajectories is proud to have collaborated with our partners across the Melbourne Children’s Campus and beyond to launch the Disability Identifier.

From our partners at the Royal Children’s Hospital:

“At the RCH, we believe quality healthcare should be accessible to every child. But we know, that’s not the case for many.

In fact, for the 5.5 million Australians living with disability (ABS, 2022) many face significant barriers to accessing healthcare and poorer health outcomes when compared to people without disability.

It’s why the hospital, worked with The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Royal Women’s Hospital, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Austin Health, University of Melbourne and Healthy Trajectories to create the Disability Identifier (DI) for the Electronic Medical Record last year.

Co-designed by people with disability, clinicians and disability experts, the DI allows patients with disability or their carers to self-report their disability to healthcare staff, so hospitals can make adjustments and better tailor care to each patient’s needs.

Made possible with funding from the Victorian Government through the State Disability Liaison Program, The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation Melbourne and in-kind support from the Centre for Health Analytics and the participating hospitals, we’re proud to present this recent evaluation report from the first nine months of DI Implementation.

Key Findings included:

• The DI questions demonstrated substantial utility in identifying individuals with disability and capturing relevant data about their difficulties and needs for assistance when accessing healthcare.
• The acceptability of the DI questions was high among patients, carers, and clinicians, indicating a positive reception and a willingness to engage with the process.
• This study contributes towards developing a standardised approach to disability identification, emphasising the need for continuous evaluation, stakeholder engagement, and leveraging digital health platforms to enhance the inclusivity of healthcare services.

In addition, the project team has developed an Accessible Care Toolkit, which can be used by other healthcare providers as a guide to help implement the DI into their workflows, supporting accessible healthcare for all.”

You can read the full report as well as the toolkit at on the RCH website.