Australia’s eHealth NSW recently
announced that it has made significant steps to use new electronic medical
record (eMR) functionality to support better care for patients with diabetes.
At the moment, one in five acute-care hospital admissions
requires diabetes management. At the same time, insulin represents one of the
top causes of medication errors and adverse events. The complexity of
prescribing and administering insulin is an ongoing challenge for many
healthcare professionals.
According to the press release, eHealth NSW is in
partnership with the Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI) and Local Health
Districts in the latest development of eMR to monitoring and review patient treatment.
In early March, the ACI announced approval and support for
the Insulin Design Focus Group’s new Glucose Management View solution to be
made available within the eMR. The ACI’s Endocrine Network expects that the new
medication management toll available within the eMR will result in safer
prescribing and administration of insulin
In the same month, the Glucose Management View successfully
went live in South Eastern Sydney Local Health District.
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. It uses information from other
tools in the electronic medical record to show the relationship between a
patient's diabetes medications and related pathology results over time.
Clinicians can view clinical information in tabulated or
graphical views. The two graph options are the insulin timeline and the blood
glucose and ketone graph, of two tables, the Diabetes Management table and the
table showing non-insulin diabetes medications. This allows clinicians to
identify and manage variances in blood glucose levels, especially before and
also between meals.
In hospitals, recently admitted patients will only have the
minimal blood glucose levels series available in the Glucose Management View.
More comprehensive clinical information will be available for long stay
inpatients or patients readmitted within the last 14 days
The eMR Connect team is now planning the rollout of the
Glucose Management View, which was originally developed in partnership with
Sydney Local Health District, across other LHDs.
It will also apply the ACI Endocrine Network’s
strong recommendations that: all sites currently live with eMeds should
prioritise the implementation of Glucose Management View as soon as
practicable; and all sites yet to go live with eMeds should prioritise the
addition of Glucose Management View to their scope.