Emergency Medicine and Access

The EMR Phase 2.1 project has moved the Western Health Emergency Departments at Footscray, Sunshine and Williamstown fully onto the Electonic Medical Record, and introduced a number of new features to assist with the care journey of our patients. The new Emergency Department system is called FirstNet, which allows the Emergency Department to manage both ED patient flow and care of ED patients. 

Emergency Department patient information can now be easily viewed by clinicians preparing to care for the patient in another part of the hospital (i.e.- Theatre, ICU or inpatients). This increased visibility across the care journey has a number of benefits for both staff and patients.   

For staff, it means better access to patient information and data to assist with clinical decision making using the most up-to-date information. This has given clinicians more time to provide the best care pathway for the patient and also improved efficiency by reducing double documentation. A number of previously used paper forms (such as the ED Nursing Chart) have moved into the EMR.   

For the patient, having a single system for documentation means key information only needs to be asked of them once, helping make a stressful time for them smoother and calmer. Having all patient information available in a single system also makes it quickly available, allowing clinicians to spend more time with patients and less time switching between multiple systems and paper processes.  

FirstNet has changed a number of previously used workflows and introduced three key elements to Emergency Department staff: ED Realtime Dashboard, ED Launchpoint and the Bed Management Tracking Board.  

The ED Dashboard displays real-time information for the ED, including data such as ED Volume (the number of beds available), Waiting Room (number of patients and length of wait time), Acuity & Critical Care, and Turnaround Times.  

This availability of data from throughout the Emergency Department helps clinicians facilitate resource allocation and communication and enhance care provision. It also allows staff outside the department to access relevant patient information prior to a transition of care (i.e. to Perioperative, ICU or Outpatients).  

ED LaunchPoint is a focused view giving clinicians the ability to track, manage and monitor patients as either specific assigned patients or to see an overview of all patients in the ED. This provides clinicians with easy access to comprehensive patient information through tooltips and expandable rows.  

Clinicians can personalise Launchpoint so that regularly used features appear more prominently, and there are also ED specific mPages, iView bands and quick orders to further streamline workflows.   

The Bed Management Tracking Board is visible across the organisation and gives the bed management access team the ability to allocate inpatients beds to Emergency Department patients and to monitor patient flow.  

This assists with reducing patient wait times by improving communication within the department and making it easier to transfer patients from one bed to another, or from the ED into another area of the hospital. 

An Introduction to FirstNet and Launchpoint

In 2023 FirstNet will replace the current Western Health Emergency Department system, EDIS, as well as numerous paper forms and our EMR Powerchart.

Launchpoint will be your landing page in FirstNet. In this video, we will introduce you to the new system, explain the benefits it will bring, and demonstrate some of the functionality and features of FirstNet and Launchpoint.

00:00 – Introduction 00:33 – What is FirstNet? 01:10 – What is Launchpoint? 01:26 – Patient information, visual alerts and provider assigning 02:31 – Patient status 03:07 – Patient vitals 03:37 – Nurse and Provider Activities column 04:35 – Zones 05:18 – Banner bar 06:06 – Conclusion and further information

 

EMR Emergency Medicine and Access presentations

EMR presentations given to the Emergency Medicine and Access team are available on the password protected Presentations page of this site.

If you do not already have the password for this page please email Kyrin.Sandles@wh.org.au

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Please click here to view Emergency Medicine and Access Frequently Asked Questions.

 

Contact

For queries regarding EMR Phase 2 and the Emergency Medicine and Access please contact Project Manager Kyrin Sandles – Kyrin.Sandles@wh.org.au