An announcement
made by the eHealth NSW showcased the newest hospital that introduced eHealth
NSW’s Electronic Record for Intensive Care (eRIC) to its 24-bed Intensive Care
Unit (ICU). Wollonggong Hospital realised the improvement that eRIC has
provided since its previous method, paper-charting, does not allow widespread,
real-time access to patient data.
Another hospital in New South Wales (NSW)
is improving patient care. Wollongong Hospital is the 11th ICU to
replace paper-charting with the state-wide, state-of-the-art clinical
information system called eHealth NSW's Electronic Record for Intensive Care
(eRIC).
Wollongong Hospital ICU Diretor Dr Michael
Davis said eRIC is an improvement from paper-charting as it provides
widespread, real-time access to patient data that was not possible with the
previous method.
Dr Davis said, “The ability for multiple
people within the hospital to access real-time patient information from
anywhere, and for both to input and extract data simultaneously, is
unprecedented and was just not possible with paper.”
Senior Registered Nurse Ms Michelle Gales
said eRIC improves their clinical work practices. She explained, “eRIC will
highlight some inconsistencies in clinical practice which will make clinicians
more accountable in following correct and due procedure for all our nursing
cares and therapies.”
Project Manager for Illawarra Shoalhaven
Local Health District Ms Kay Duckinson said eRIC will be able to further
support clinicians in caring for the critically ill.
Ms Duckinson added, “Clinicians can chart
and map everything together. eRIC captures patient data continuously from
multiple devices and organises it in a simple format, providing a more in-depth
view of the patient electronically.”
She added, “The integrated view of relevant
observations, medications, fluids, pathology and numerous state-wide forms
supports clinical decision-making.”
Dr Davis furthered that eRic allows for a
host of possibilities that cannot be achievable with paper charting. He said, “eRIC
is a massive data source which we now can access.”
He added, “Whether that is for research, or
for looking at quality, running reports, there is no limit to its potential.
With everything stored electronically, in one location, it’s easy to access,
and you can do with it what you wish.”
The alerts and additional features packed
in the eRIC system reduces errors thereby improving care of the critically ill.
Thanks to the ICU clinicians who designed eRIc.
Dr Davis explained how eRIC has improved
their services, “Before eRIC was deployed we arranged for half the ICU team to
work on paper and the other half to work with eRIC. While half of the team
completed paper admissions and medication reconciliations, the other half
conducted these tasks on eRIC.”
He added, “By using eRIC, the team managed
to finish the admission faster. And eRIC was able to pick up an error in a
medication reconciliation while checking the paper admission. When attempting
to input the medication information in eRIC, the application wouldn’t allow our
clinicians to complete the task because it had been documented incorrectly.”
Deployments are scheduled on a monthly
basis until the end of 2018 for the state-wide roll-out of eHealth NSW’s
Electronic Record for Intensive Care continues The next go-live will take place
at Maitland Hospital in Hunter New England Local Health District at the end of
July.
An earlier
announcement highlighted the significant steps made by eHealth NSW to use a new
electronic medical record (eMR) functionality to support better care for
patients with diabetes. The Glucose Management View in the electronic medical
record provides clinicians with a consolidated view of a patient’s diabetes
management, supporting safe and consistent ongoing treatment and monitoring
throughout the patient’s hospital stay.
A recent
announcement highlighted the second phase of eHealth NSW’s electronic medical
record (eMR2), which has expanded to enhance patience care at 2 more hospitals
in South Western Sydney Local Health District (LHD). eMR2 extends the
foundation of eMR and introduces electronic clinical documentation for patients
in hospitals. It provides a broad range of core clinical documentation such as
comprehensive clinical risk assessments, checklists, progress notes, clinical
summary and patient history.
A previous
announcement highlighted how Sutherland Hospital had deployed and started using
Electronic Record for Intensive Care (eRIC), giving clinicians better access to
valuable information about the patients being treated in its Intensive Care
Unit (ICU). eRIC can provide access to patient medical records including past
admissions allowing better data collection and benchmarking.
An even
earlier announcement highlighted how eHealth NSW led a major
state-wide upgrade of the Enterprise Imaging Repository (EIR) viewer software,
which allows NSW Health clinicians to access diagnostic-quality medical images
from across the state. The recent state-wide upgrade is a significant advance
in the digital transformation of the state’s public health system. Radiologists
and treating clinicians can now access a much-improved quality of medical
images in the EIR via the electronic medical record (eMR) and the HealtheNet
Clinical Portal.