St George’s Hospital delivering a better experience with Vitro Software’s Digital Medical Record

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St George’s Hospital in Christchurch are taking their rich history of innovation in healthcare to the bedside and are on the way to becoming a fully digital hospital with the introduction of Vitro as their Digital Medical Record.

Twelve months after contract signing, doctors and nurses at St George’s Hospital are now recording and accessing patient care data digitally from the hospital bedside.

At the forefront of their digital journey was to find a solution that would help them to provide the best patient experience and working environment for their team.

The first phase of the implementation, which went live in October, has converted the critical paper forms used by clinicians and nurses into digital apps. These cover observation and monitoring documentation and include the National Early Warning Score and mandatory escalation pathways.

In addition to the digital apps, Vitro Software has also developed dashboards that give doctors and nurses an overview of their patient’s clinical information in real time, viewed on screens and tablets throughout the facility.

The overall solution, which will be rolled out in four phases over the next 12 months, will be used across ICU, high dependency care, maternity, day surgery and cardiology by all medical, nursing, allied health and administrative staff.

“Seeing our clinicians embrace Vitro so quickly and the exceptional feedback we have received from them has given us great confidence in the decisions we made around our digital strategy. Vitro Software’s approach to development and implementation has meant that we were able to very quickly start seeing the benefits of the system.

“We are excited about the following phases which are being rolled out progressively over the coming months and continuing the digital transformation journey,” says St George’s Hospital CEO Greg Brooks.

“One of the key drivers of this project is to improve our patient and clinician experiences. Using Vitro, clinicians can now access patient information on the move, and even at this early stage of the project we have seen a positive impact on patient discharge times,” he says.

Erin Bensley, Informatics Nurse Specialist at St George’s Hospital who is part of the project team says, “We have worked alongside the Vitro Software team in co-developing our Digital Medical Record over the last year and we are excited to have just gone live with phase one.

“Its resounding success has meant our clinicians and users are as excited as the project team to see the next phases go-live, including a Medications Management module.”

Bensley, who is presenting at New Zealand’s leading health informatics conference, HiNZ Conference 2019, goes on to say, “It is fantastic to return to HiNZ this year. I will speak about our digital transformation journey one year on. Last year St George’s had just embarked on the co-development of our Digital Medical Record in conjunction with Vitro Software.

“This year I will share where we are now, the approach taken to the co-design process, implementation and clinical engagement, as well as some of the lessons learnt along the way”.

Dave Nash, Vitro Software chairman and CEO commented, “I have been hugely impressed with St George’s Hospital, their state-of-the-art facilities and their digital strategic vision for the hospital.

“We are both delighted and proud to be working with them on this digital transformation project which saw them go live with Vitro as their Digital Medical Record this month. The success of the first phase of the implementation is due to the hard work and dedication of the hospital’s and our project teams.”

Vitro Software is supported in Australia and New Zealand by Enterprise Ireland, Ireland’s national export agency.

Enterprise Ireland Australia/New Zealand Director David Eccles added, “We are delighted to see St George’s Hospital start to realise the benefits of the Vitro platform. With Vitro Software now in the New Zealand market means more hospitals will benefit from their innovative approach to healthcare IT and the way they uniquely meet the needs of each of their clients using technology that is flexible, adaptable and highly user-friendly.”

Source: Vitro Software media release, 20 November 2019

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