GP Fact Sheet on the Victorian Maternity Record

February 2010

What is the VMR?

The Victorian Maternity Record (VMR) is a standard hand held pregnancy record that is being adopted across public health services in Victoria. Pregnant women are encouraged to bring the record (it fits into a A5 plastic pocket) to all GP and hospital appointments. The VMR will

encourage consistency of information
enhance communication between service providers
promote women’s involvement in decisions around their care

Women have responded very positively to the VMR and GPs have found it useful as a prompt for pregnancy care. Importantly, the VMR contains summary information on the labour, birth and baby. The VMR includes the 3 Centres ‘A guide to tests and investigations’ booklet.

What do they cost?

The VMR is free to women, GPs and hospitals.

Where do women get them?

The VMR is a state government initiative with public maternity services. Hospitals will lead discussions on dissemination processes at the local level.

Ideally women should receive the VMR early in their pregnancy, so GPs are invited to provide a VMR to women at the first visit after the pregnancy is confirmed. If this does not occur, women will receive it via the hospital when they book in or attend their first hospital visit.

GPs and practices can source copies of the VMR through their local hospital or order the VMR on line at

What is expected of the GP?

In preparation, GPs are asked to familiarize themselves with the VMR, via the web at

or through the local contact listed below.

GPs are asked to encourage women to carry the VMR to all medical appointments and hospital visits.

GPs are requested to add progress notes at each consultation. GPs can complete page 4 of the VMR and document progress visits from page 5 onwards as per previous hand held records. Alternatively and to avoid double entry, GPs can print out their completed consultation record (such as the antenatal record in MD3) and attach this to the VMR along with any relevant investigations.

Some GPs may want to use the introduction of the VMR as an opportunity to learn more about the capabilities of their clinical systems to manage antenatal data that can be generated for referrals such as the Maternity VSRF +, consultation reports and recalls. These GPs can seek assistance from peers or their local division to learn more about their clinical system capability to assist in workflow.

Who is the local contact for the VMR?

Hospital / Project Status / Project lead/contact person
Ballarat / Sue McRae
Nurse Unit Manager
Ph 5320 4971

Ballarat & District Division of General Practice / Ph 03 5331 6303

Useful local contacts for other programs and initiatives

Program / Description / /contact person
Barwon / Commenced in caseload midwifery.
Wider implementation mid 2010 / Kim Layton
Shared Maternity Care Coordinator
GeelongHospital
Ph 03 5260 3161

Mercy / Implemented / Dr Mary Anne McLean
GP Liaison Medical Advisor
MercyHospital for Women
Ph 8458 4831

Royal Women’s / Dr Ines Rio
GP Liaison Officer
Ph 03 8345 1735

For more information on the VMR

GPV contact:

Jane Measday

Program Consultant

Ph 03 9341 5220