The South Australian Government has commissioned a new web-based information system to give nurses and midwives instant access to patient records.

Developed by Sydney-based Emerging Systems, the technology will be used to integrate patient records across the public hospital system to help improve the safety and speed of healthcare delivery.

The $17 million project aims to add another level to South Australia’s electronic health records system – careconnect.sa, which intends to link all clinicians and patient information over the next seven to ten years.

According to SA Health Department chief information officer, David Johnston linking nurses and midwives through a patient health record system will allow faster access to patient information, which will lead to more responsive and informed treatment.

“All major public hospitals will be linked which will help improve areas such as patient care planning, care quality management and patient acuity, as well as workforce utilisation of our nurses and midwives,” Mr Johnston says.

The Emerging Health Solutions system will be rolled out progressively to 17 public hospitals across the State by the end of next year, starting with Lyell McEwen Hospital in Adelaide.

Emerging Systems chief executive officer, Russel Duncan says the system is simple to use.
“Nurses can learn the essentials in 15 minutes and will be fully proficient after just four hours,” he said.
“Because all the information is at their fingertips, they’ll have more time to spend on patient care and less on chasing paperwork.

He says the system is fully secure and contains a range of features to support quality treatment, including a risk assessment profiler for each patient and a variance tracking tool to ensure the treatment follows a patient care guide.

“It also means that hospitals will no longer be faced with the huge storage issues of keeping ever increasing paper records.”