Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

Following Northern Territory Department of Health’s announcement that it will soon become the first pathology provider to link the online test results it is sharing via My Health Record (MHR) with Lab Tests Online, South Australia (SA) Pathology, the statewide pathology provider for the public health sector, has also connected to the MHR. WHAT’S THE IMPACT SA Health patients will be able to conveniently access their pathology reports, and clinicians will be able to get pathology results faster. South Australians can now take any pathology request form to any SA Pathology collection centre and their report can be uploaded to their MHR, giving patients timely access to their pathology results. Having pathology results on an MHR brings about several benefits, such as being able to keep track of tests and know when they were carried out, the ability to monitor results over time and improved access to health information for clinicians and individuals. ON THE RECORD “This connection is a great development for SA Pathology and means our customers will now benefit from being able to access their pathology results through MHR. This also will benefit GPs who will be able to have up to date pathology information for their patients,” said SA Pathology Clinical Services Director Dr Tom Dodd in a statement. Dr Chris Moy, Adelaide General Practitioner and Clinical Reference Lead for the Australian Digital Health Agency, said, “As a GP who is often forced to waste valuable time chasing down pathology results, especially for a new patient, this will make my job easier and the patient's care safer. If that patient had their test carried out by SA Pathology, I will be able to view it immediately on MHR, even if it was ordered by another doctor and not addressed to me. This removes the need for the traditional but dreaded phone around to all the local labs to find these out.”

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The Northern Territory (NT) Department of Health in Australia will soon become the first pathology provider to link the online tests results it is sharing via My Health Record (MHR) with Lab Tests Online, a not-for-profit website funded by the Australian Government under the Quality Use of Pathology Program (QUPP). MHR is an online, electronic summary of one’s key health information. The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) announced in February this year that 9 out of 10 Australians have a MHR following the conclusion of the opt-out period.  Why it matters Pathology providers across Australia have started uploading reports (such as blood test results) to the online record. The aim is that by having direct access to their results, anyone with an MHR can keep track of the tests they have had, the dates when they had them and be able to monitor results over time. The ADHA has recognised that as people have direct access to their test results – many of them for the first time – they need help to understand what the results mean. It has turned to Lab Tests Online to deliver this service. All those in the Northern Territory receiving their results report on their MHR will now have a direct link to the opening page of the Lab Tests Online website. The front page of the website is being redesigned to accommodate this new audience. As part of the redesign, a predictive search function and quick links will be included to the most commonly searched tests to make navigation easier. Lab Tests Online is working with a number of pathology providers to assist them in following the NT Health initiative and embed links in their reports. What’s the trend According to Lab Tests Online, there is a growing public appetite for information about pathology tests. Traffic to their website has increased at more than 50 per cent annually in recent years and reached 2.6 million-page views in 2018.

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Chase Farm Hospital (CFH), part of the Royal Free London (RFL) group, has been validated at Stage 6 of the HIMSS – owner of Healthcare IT News - Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) after an on-site assessment last week. Over 2,500 hospitals in Europe have been assessed on the EMRAM, an eight-stage model measuring EMR capabilities and tracking the progress of healthcare organisations against others around the world. The standards were updated at the beginning of January 2018 to reflect advances in the healthcare technology space, according to John Rayner, HIMSS Analytics regional director for Europe and Latin America.The Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS) requirement, for example, is now part of the Stage 1 criteria, as opposed to Stage 5. “In addition, areas of compliance have been increased to raise the bar and to acknowledge the importance of having these critical services hospital-wide, rather than in a single clinical area. As a result of these changes, some hospitals are likely to find achieving the higher stages of the model more challenging than they did prior to January 2018,” Rayner told Healthcare IT News in November last year. In England, only two other NHS organisations are currently validated at Stage 6, Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) NHS Foundation Trust and Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and none at Stage 7. CUH was revalidated against the new Stage 6 standards last year. Like Cambridge, RFL is part of the flagship NHS global digital exemplar scheme, through which it says that it has received £10m in matched funding – with the trust also putting in £10m – for new technology. It is one of four NHS trusts selected to develop a so-called group model and help "share services and resources more effectively across hospitals", according to information provided by the trust.  “This digital approach is what the future of healthcare looks like and means a better experience for our patients and our staff. Now our aim is to further advance our use of technology so CFH can become a stage 7 hospital,” said in a statement Dr Chris Streather, chief medical officer of the RFL group. Rayner said the HIMSS Analytics team was “particularly impressed with the amount of progress that has been in such a short time” after the Cerner Millennium go-live in November 2018. The new hospital opened to patients in September last year following a £200m redevelopment. “I was particularly impressed with the degree of device integration within the operating theatres and the anaesthetic facilities. All the clinicians that we spoke with on the day maintained that the benefits of using electronic patient records far outweighed any benefits of working with paper systems. I left with the impression that there is commitment at all levels within this organisation to use technology to improve patient safety and the overall quality of clinical care,” Rayner added. Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication. .jumbotron{ background-image: url("https://www.healthcareitnews.com//sites/hitn/files/u2556/HelsinkiJumbotron.jpg"); background-size: cover; color: white; } .jumbotron h2{ color: white; } Full coverage: HIMSS & Health 2.0 Europe 2019 Healthcare decision makers, patients, clinicians, nurses, life science professionals, innovators and many more are set to convene at the HIMSS & Health 2.0 European Conference 2019 in Helsinki on 11-13 June.