St George’s Clinical Records go digital

August 16, 2024

When a patient is admitted to St George’s they bring a lot of crucial information with them, both in their personally-completed pre-admission forms, and in the health files from their surgeons, specialists and GPs.

It is vital that clinical staff have access to their patient’s information, with the assurance that it is accurate, up to date, and complete with all of the data required for whatever treatment or procedure the patient needs.

For patient privacy, the information must be held securely and to be only available to those clinicians who need access to care for and treat the patient. Those clinicians also need to update those records with details of the patient’s treatments, outcomes, medications and so on.

To streamline the clinical information process and to provide a better and safer service to patients, St George’s is digitising all of its clinical records, and assisting clinicians (nurses, doctors, surgeons, anaesthetists etc) to move from paper to digital formats.

Helping to drive this process and provide the link between clinicians and the hospital’s IT systems, is Erin Bensley, St George’s Informatics Nurse Specialist.

For the clinicians, Erin says the process is about making sure the system works smarter and more effectively as they move into the digital space.

“A quality informatics system also facilitates better decision making by clinicians as they care for their patients, because they have fast and complete access to all of the patient’s information.

“That helps clinicians do their job better and makes it safer for patients.”

Clinical Informaticians work throughout the New Zealand health and disability system, representing the needs of the people they serve, says Erin.

This includes patients and their family and wider whanau, interdisciplinary care teams, hospital business and management professionals, and the information technology colleagues they work alongside.

“Clinical Informaticians are integral to the digitisation of the health sector. They do this by leading and/or participating in the governance, procurement, design, development, change management, implementation, evaluation, maintenance, and continuous improvement of health and care information systems and technologies,” says Erin.

This all results in superior care and better health outcomes for St Georges’ patients.