29 July 2021
What will the EMR mean for me: Nursing and Medical perspectives
The Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Workshop 2 was completed on 23 July 2021. With the implementation of the EMR, it is critical that the EMR system is designed and built to be ‘fit for purpose’ for us in providing exceptional care to our patients.
More than 100 workshops and meetings were held over this second ‘sprint’ since 31 May 2021. By adopting the iterative approach in these workshops, this allowed our Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to see the clinical workflows incrementally, as they are being built. This approach has the advantage that potential risks or concerns can be mitigated beforehand for a smoother go-live.
The EMR team works closely with Cerner, our EMR vendor, to design, build and validate existing or new workflows across disciplines such as nursing, medical, allied health, pharmacy, and much more.
Daniella Chapkoun, Nursing Informatics Officer and Benefits Analyst, was excited to shed some light on the biggest changes for the nursing cohort that has been confirmed so far. “The EMR will change how we document patient care. We will be documenting at the bedside in real-time. From a clinician perspective, this means greater efficiency and transparency of care, while from a patient perspective, it will enhance their journey with us at Northern Health, knowing their clinical information is located in one centralised repository.”
Being with Northern Health for 20 years, Daniella looks forward to having a 360-degree view of the patient journey. “With an EMR, it doesn’t matter where the patient is and where you are, you will be able to provide continuation of care across the four Northern Health sites, and more importantly in real-time. If we need an urgent review, all information is collocated and accessible remotely within a secure environment.”
Thomas Shiels, EMR Medical Analyst and Junior Medical Officer, says he believes doctors will be excited for some of the changes that would have positive impacts for the medical staff. “We are confident that having to leave pathology slips all over the hospital for AM bloods will be a thing of the past and future pathology requests can be requested from a single location. Having to trek across the hospital to sign off a form or to sign a clexane order on a drug chart will also be a distant memory,” he explained.
Hoping to reduce duplicated paperwork and to provide better visibility to all clinicians involved in a patient’s care, Thomas adds, “Another huge benefit is that after go-live, medical staff will be able to view a patient’s results and observations from any PC in real-time through EMR.”
Sarai Abel, EMR Applications Manager, says she is proud of her team and our EMR stakeholders for completing Sprint 2.“We would like to thank all Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Accountable Leaders for joining us for our first 8-week iteration. We were able to introduce, demonstrate and make some decisions on some components of EMR functionality our clinicians will be using in the near future.”
Looking forward, she adds, “In Sprint 3, we very much look forward to doing the same, engaging with our stakeholders to design a baseline EMR that is patient safe, compliant and useable for Northern Health.”
Sprint 3 commenced on 26 July and will end on 17 September 2021.
For more details on what the EMR will mean for you, please click here.
