Streamlining Australia’s EPR Roadmap with Lessons from the UK & US

(Newswire.net — June 4, 2015) Adelaide, SOUTH AUSTRALIA — When it comes to the digitisation of records within the health care sector, the majority of practices, hospitals and health facilities face five main challenges; expensive upfront costs, dedicated buy-in from clinicians and management, security of private information, resourcing and potential changeover complications. This means that many facilities are hesitant to take the big leap of changing from paper-based systems to paperless systems despite the many positive aspects that digitisation offers.

 

For data management globally in the health industry, it is evident that the majority of the market has two choices in the current state of play; continue to use an inefficient but widely practised paper-based system, or move to digitisation, incurring a massive initial cost and requiring a complex, involved change management process that requires buy-in from both clinicians and operational management.

 

In Australia, the billion-dollar e-health system has been touted as “shambolic,” with few doctors and patients signing up to the voluntary scheme due to fear of liability and privacy of information. With success dependent on buy-in, the system faces redundancy if uptake doesn’t improve.

 

It’s a similar story in the US with a lack of adoption by the medical industry. Previous reports have implied only 50% of doctors are digitising records, while hospitals are at just over 30%. A major risk faced by practices and hospitals is a lack of skilled resources available to maintain new and complex IT health investments, rendering new IT investments as unsustainable.

 

Despite the challenges faced by e-health solutions, there’s strong argument for digitisation done well, with records accessible from any location, efficient and self-managed storage and retrieval and reduced handling costs. But how do organisations get from A to B without the massive overheads and issues concerning risk-laden change management, buy-in and resourcing? Are we moving to digitisation purely for the sake of digitisation and at what cost?

 

For the Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust it has been a matter of adapting digitisation to the organisation, rather than the reverse. Having not yet implemented a full paperless EPR system, the Trust recognised the benefits of adopting technology that enhanced its current system, rather than eradicating it in the immediate term as part of a costly upgrade.

 

The iFIT? (Intelligent File and Inventory Tracking) system implemented by the Trust uses RFID technology to digitally scan, track and locate patient files anywhere within a practice or hospital.

 

This provides a better overall view and control of records, allowing a selective process for which records to digitise and why, while maintaining the beneficial elements of the current system. This transitional approach to digitisation means a lower up-front investment in technology, reducing unnecessary change, while utilising the strengths of the existing culture and knowledge base.

 

Essentially, it has illustrated a reduced need to digitise everything at once, particularly for the Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust with 80% of patients not returning to the hospital.

 

Philip Stone, Records Manager at Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, explained that iFIT? “has allowed us to make simple changes to our processes but in return has given us significant efficiency gains. It is easy to use and easy to implement.”

 

In addition to supporting the move to EPR, Stone claims that iFIT? has helped reduce clinical risk, reduce appointment cancellations, ensure notes are always available at the point of care and lessen time taken for integrated clinical preparation. Head of Outpatients and Health Records Service, Jackie Brown, says the iFIT? system is “speedier and more accurate, enabling staff members to place files virtually anywhere and still find their location.”

 

Complementary to systems that are already in place internally, iFIT? presents a risk-averse, comparatively painless process that delivers time and cost saving benefits while supporting the move to digitisation through bite-sized increments.

 

For the Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, it was the ideal, progressive solution for handling its historical backlog of patient records while creating a road map towards digitisation without the challenging change management, stakeholder resistance and resourcing risks. “Management of paper documents will still be a requirement for many years to come,” says Stone. “Retention periods for some of our documents is 30 years. Even if we went completely electronic tomorrow we would still need to track and, on occasion, have access to legacy documents.”

 

Director of Information and Facilities at the Surrey & Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, Ian Mackenzie, sees the major barriers to digitisation are resourcing, clinical buy-in and operational management buy-in. Thus, to be effective, the future of digitisation lies in a solution that is both financially and culturally viable for hospitals and practices in the immediate, medium and long term. By adopting a user-friendly, complementary and cost-effective system that can transition an organization to digitisation, the move to EPR can be a smoother road travelled.

 

Ultimately, it has to be about making digitisation work for all involved, with the right systems to support clinicians and management through the process. By being pro-active, hospitals and practices can gain control of their pathway to digitisation and save significant money and stress.

 

For further information, email marketing@6pmplc.com or visit www.6pmsolutions.com

 

 

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