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Antiquated patient data systems can struggle to keep up with both the expectations of patients and the demands of health professionals.

A new patient management and administration system, to be known as SI PICS (the South Island Patient Information Care System), is to be rolled out across all five South Island DHBs over the next few years – starting with some locations at Canterbury DHB at the end of 2015 and followed by the whole of Nelson-Marlborough DHB in 2016 – with the aim of providing a more flexible and responsive system*.

One of the South Island clinicians involved in helping develop SI PICS is Peter Twamley, who is now Nelson-Marlborough District Health Board quality control coordinator but was the charge nurse manager of outpatients when first invited to join the project team.

Twamley says he was keen to get involved as he and his colleagues live with the daily challenges of a system that doesn't work. He says the problem is outdated technology that causes gaps in inter-departmental communication and difficulties in managing patient appointments. These all affect the patient experience.

“For example, a patient gets a new hip, but what they will remember is that they had to wait hours in the hospital between appointments when it could have been avoided. If we improve systems, we improve quality and safety, and we improve a patient’s experience.”

He says having a system that can quickly and easily reschedule appointments between specialists is important, as is the access and movement of patient information between departments.

"These are all part of the current patient administration solution, but it’s just not keeping up with our demands as staff, nor with health demands and expectations of patients in the 21st century world," says Twamley. “Antiquated systems constrain many innovations that will have potential to improve capacity and increase operational facility on the whole.”

The new PICS system will eventually integrate with other health information technology initiatives like eMeds (electronic prescribing), Safety 1st (see related story), HealthOne (formerly eSCRV, which is the Canterbury & West Coast system of sharing patient information across general practices, community pharmacies, and public hospitals), and the clinical workstation Health Connect South (that will be a single repository across the South Island of patient clinical records). :

*Source: From article supplied by Frederique Gulcher, communications advisor for South Island Alliance.