Southern Cross co-designs e-Vitals solution

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth 

Southern Cross Healthcare worked with Orion Health to develop an electronic vital signs module, which is now live across its hospital network as part of their Clinical Workstation.

The mobile solution enables nurses to record and monitor a patient's bedside vital signs on a mobile phone, calculates the Early Warning Score and provides alerts if a patient is deteriorating. Around 1600 nurses have been onboarded to use it.

The e-Vitals module was piloted in September 2020 at Brightside Hospital and was fully operational across all 16 Southern Cross Hospitals by the middle of last year.

Chief digital officer Trevor Delany says, “we saw a need in our facilities to provide nurses and specialists with accurate, timely bedside observation data.

“We challenged Orion to work with us to create that product and it was very much co-designed with clinical users via workshops, hospital observation sessions and regular feedback sessions with user groups.”

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Southern Cross Healthcare director of nursing Carey Campbell says e-Vitals has always been on the organisation’s roadmap for an end-to-end electronic patient record. The most recent vital signs and how they are trending is displayed on the patient’s dashboard and on electronic whiteboards on the wards.

“It’s all of these different ways of using information which shows the benefit of having this done electronically, as it’s a single source of truth and can be surfaced wherever it’s needed,” she explains.

Sepsis screening and pain scores have been included in the new module as these are related and often done by nurses at the same time as vital signs.

Campbell says nurses can also write a progress note into e-Vitals and this will appear in the patient record in chronological order.

“Information is readily accessible by all clinical people at the time they need it, including remotely, so the nurse and doctor can make much more informed clinical decisions for the patient,” she says.

Specialists can access their patients’ vital signs and progress notes remotely via Clinical Workstation and nearly 90 percent of Southern Cross Hospitals’ specialists are now enrolled for mobile access.

This allows specialists to gain early insights into their patient for that day, as well as monitor patients after surgery and engage with the care team in the facility. On average there are 800 logins a month by medical specialists.

Delany says, “that’s a terrific adoption endorsement by medical specialists. The first hurdle is getting them online: we're now looking to help them fit this into their workflows, so that they can really get the benefit from it.”

Picture: Southern Cross Healthcare director of nursing Carey Campbell

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