The EMR Phase 2.1 project continues to be a hive of activity, with project team members designing, building and validating more solutions for the enhanced Western Health EMR.

The project team is currently in the midst of Sprint 5 (of eight), with 473 workshops completed across 778 hours since the project launched last year. It’s an incredible amount of work and the results are starting to show.

With roughly 14 months to go until the EMR Phase 2.1 Go-Live, a number of enhancements are nearing completion and will soon be ready to showcase to the broader organisation. Here is a small sample of the work completed in the most recent round of workshops.

In the Emergency Medicine and Access project stream, the build of FirstNet for the Emergency Department is almost complete, and a brief demonstration video is currently being produced. FirstNet will replace the current EDIS system, along with paper forms, and has been purpose built to support the needs of Western Health Emergency Department clinicians.

The team are also working hard to build tasks as part of the patient journey. For example, if a patient presents to an ED Medical Officer with a TAC or workplace accident, the Medical Officer will be tasked to complete the TAC/ Worksafe form.

In the Specialist Clinics project stream, manual workflows have been converted into active worklists and reports to assist staff who manage Medicare funded clinics. This will help to identify expired referrals, consent requirements and missed billing opportunities

Work is also taking place to ensure nursing workflows are consistent across both inpatient and outpatient venues of care, which will assist staff who transition between both areas with use of the EMR.

One of the biggest pieces of work has been in the Cancer Services project stream. Currently, all chemotherapy treatments at Western Health are prescribed on paper drug charts, with the project team working to develop PowerChart Oncology in the EMR.

This involves the build and management of approximately 100 treatment regimens, which encompass referrals, pathology, prescription, treatments, as well as scheduling orders, and create an integrated process to prepare multiple cycles of treatment for a patient at one time

The team has also developed the SmartZone alert, a new piece of functionality that will allow clinicians to clearly see patients that have been put onto research within PowerChart. Currently this is not face-up and clear meaning that additional systems need to be reviewed to provide patient care.

The Women’s and Children’s team are building a Blood Loss Calculator in the EMR for Birthing, which will allow clinicians to improve patient care by more accurately measuring and documenting blood loss in the EMR

Perioperative stakeholders have also given approval to use this in theatre which means blood loss and fluid management will be better managed across different venues of care.

The Perioperative & Anaesthesia and ICU & Critical Care project streams have recently completed a large batch of data collection to allow further build and validation work to continue. The team has also agreed with NUMs on key decisions regarding Theatre Technician access to the EMR and a phased Go-Live for Preference Cards in the EMR to reduce paper usage in these areas.

Three more rounds of workshops will take place in the coming months which will conclude the design, build and validation stage of the EMR Phase 2.1 project.