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Drs. Jim & Leslie Rourke

The Rourke Baby Record (RBR) is a freely available health supervision guide for preventive healthcare of infants and young children up to 5 years of age. It is available in both English and French.

The RBR consists of visit GUIDES along with relevant and concise NOTES pertaining to each well baby/well child visit. Each visit includes evidence informed recommendations on growth and nutrition monitoring, developmental surveillance, physical examination parameters, and immunizations. It also includes anticipatory guidance on injury prevention, family functioning, and health promotion issues.

Parent/caregiver resources include age-specific RBR advice sheets as well as links to reliable information curated and researched by healthcare professionals.

The Rourke Baby Record (RBR) began in 1979 as an aide-mémoire flowchart in the Goderich Ontario rural family practice of Drs James and Leslie Rourke to facilitate office team-based collaborative comprehensive care. First published in 1985 (1), the RBR has been validated (2), and has been updated most recently in 2024 (3, 4, 5).

The RBR functions as a knowledge mobilization tool to help clinicians keep current with the overwhelming amount of evolving relevant research findings. It has become a de facto Canadian standard to guide the preventive health care of infants and children from birth to age 5 years.

The Rourke Baby Record is affiliated with the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) and the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), and is endorsed by the CPS, the CFPC, and Dietitians of Canada (DC).

Funding from the Government of Ontario has facilitated the updates of the RBR since 2005.

References

  1. Rourke JTB, Rourke LL. Well Baby Visits: Screening and Health Promotion. Canadian Family Physician 1985;31:997-1002.
  2. Rourke L, Godwin M, Rourke J, Pearce S, Bean J. The Rourke Baby Record Infant/Child Maintenance Guide: do doctors use it, do they find it useful, and does using it improve their well-baby visit records?. BMC Family Practice 2009;10:28.
  3. Li P, Rowan-Legg A, Kwok B, Bayoumi I, Arulthas S, Tedone E, Leduc D, Rourke J and Rourke L. 2020 edition of the Rourke Baby Record: What is new in preventive care of children up to 5 years of age? Can Fam Physician 2021; 67:488-498 doi:10.46747/cfp.6707488
  4. Rowan-Legg A, Bayoumi I, Kwok B, Leduc D, Rourke L, Rourke J, Li P. The 2020 Rourke Baby Record release: A time for reflection and looking forward. Paediatrics & Child Health, Volume 26, Issue 5, August 2021, Pages 283–286
  5. Rourke L, Rourke J, Leduc D, Li P, Rowan-Legg A, Bayoumi I, Kwok B. Knowledge mobilization for primary care: Lessons learned from 40 years of the Rourke Baby Record. Can Fam Physician 2022; 68:721-725 doi:10.46747/cfp.6810721