Ambulance Care Summaries viewed electronically across SI hospitals

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Ambulance Care Summaries were viewed more than 18,000 times last month by hospital staff working across the South Island, via Health Connect South (HCS).

An integration between Orion Health's Health Connect South and the St John and Wellington Free Ambulance systems means clinicians at four of the South Island’s DHBs can view all Ambulance Care Summaries for a patient within their clinical portal.

St John went live with an electronic Patient Report Form system in October 2015, but previously this ePRF was printed off in EDs and any information needed for the hospital record had to be manually re-entered into the HCS portal.
ED physician at Christchurch Hospital James Weaver says the digital process means the summaries are available immediately for ED staff to view and the process saves considerable time for St John ambulance officers in printing them off. 
“Anyone involved in a patient’s care can access them at any time without having to find the notes and like with any piece of paper, there was always a risk of things going missing,” he says.
Canterbury DHB was the first to go-live with the new service in April 2020, followed by Nelson Marlborough in August, West Coast in September and Southern in October.

Canterbury DHB regional product manager Debbie Beesley says the summaries were viewed more than 18,000 times in both January and February of this year. 

She says while it was expected that the summaries would be well used by ED staff, there was a surprising level of use by people working in other departments.

Weaver says there has been particularly positive feedback from clinicians in neurology and cardiology clinics, where the history of what was seen and done when a patient had an emergency event can be crucial to making a diagnosis.

The integration means that notes taken during the assessment of a person who does not need to be admitted to hospital can also be accessed via HCS. 

Beesley says these can give insight about a person’s home environment, such as whether they have stairs.

These summaries are also being made available to general practitioners and include details of the patient’s clinical problem, any treatment administered, and recommendations given to the patient.