I’m interested to learn how other DHBs manage their outpatient clinic outcome process. CCDHB have paper outcome forms that are handed to the booking clerks/collected by clinic nurses.
Any DHBs have an electronic process for capturing/actioning clinic outcomes? Appreciate if we can connect.
I know Whanganui clinicians enter the outcomes into webPAS, report is then generated of all the visits & outcomes, which booking staff work off.
To my knowledge, ADHB still uses paper outcome forms i.e. CR8699. Chiming in here as you could look at Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solution to digitize and automatically enter the forms into webPAS? The BluePrism licence 3DHB currently pays for includes OCR i.e. Decipher IDP. Sorry, I know this isn’t what you may be looking for but RPA could be a quick fix to reduce the cost/effort/time to process these.
Waitemata DHB have an electronic solution for this exact process. @lara could help you get in contact with the right people there to discuss how they have solved it.
Thanks for asking, @joannalee! While I was in Birmingham (UK), we were looking at how to combine two unintegrated digital workflows: clinic notes and clinic outcome. I guess you’d call that a 2nd generation digitisation project. It would have been so much easier to do it right from the start with a single database and/or application.
Great to have you in CiLN, Mark.
This would be even better shared here so we can all learn - this is a problem everywhere! Email inboxes can really silo us off from one another.
Thanks Nathan, yes Waitemata DHB went digital for this part of the process as a necessity during the early days of COVID I believe. It build on prior Innovation Partnership project work where this concept was tested. The form is accessed from the Clinical Portal (Concerto) Clinic List and on completion surfaces on newly created bookers list to clark.
As I currently understand it they still use the Care Pathways application which is an electronic form accessed from within the patient context to essentially replace the paper forms.
Having observed the long and winding current state it has at minimum made a 36hr improvement of getting the paper to the right booker AND more importantly more assurance that all patients will get the intended outcome as stated by the clnician.
The paper logistic trail is inordinatly long and fraught. When you actually look at everyone involved in that “supply chain”; getting the right colour paper with the right printed content to the right location in the right cubby hole/pile in the right numbers with the right clinic grouping with the right patient sticky attached the right way around AND THEN completed correctly and transported to the right booker. It’s incredible how much handling is in this process AND by highly trained clinical staff!
Note that it’s entirely technically achievable to allow clinicians to book patients for their next appointment be it in PAS or with a Form that integrates to a PAS. This is an entirely surmountable goal if there was enough ground swell from clinical/governance layers of DHBs.
@joannalee if you are still interested then I can link you to the right people if you have not already managed to get in touch with them.