Southern Cross pilots digital admissions

eHealthNews.nz: Clinical Software

Wednesday, 8 June 2022

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NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

eAdmissions Southern Cross Healthcare has developed and piloted a surgical digital admissions solution and is looking at wider roll-out across its hospitals.

Chief digital officer Trevor Delany says the digital solution replaces a 13-page paper pack of forms that patients had to fill-out for clinicians to assess before surgery.

The forms are critical to inform the organisation about the patient and their health status, what medicines they are currently taking and their agreement to treatment.

Previously this paper pack was scanned and emailed in, posted or dropped off by hand, or not received at all until the day of the scheduled surgery. Delany says some patients even got inventive and sent a video of them slowly turning the pages from their mobile phone.

The digital solution was designed and built with Orion Health, which provides the Clinical Workstation for Southern Cross hospitals.

It was piloted at Southern Cross Auckland Surgical Centre between November 2021 - March 2022.

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Six specialists across orthopaedics, plastic surgery and reconstructive surgery were involved in the pilot and more than 160 patients chose the digital pathway during that time.

“We've seen brilliant uptake, with up to 90 percent of patients using a digital channel for admissions,” says Delany.

Southern Cross exterior He says this has huge benefits around workflow efficiency for specialists and reduced time to complete documentation for patients. Specialists rooms reported an 83 percent reduction in time to manage the associated paperwork/education per patient admission

Increased accuracy and completeness of data using the digital solution meant the number of follow up calls between admissions staff and patients also reduced by half.

“We are looking at rolling this out across our entire network, so all of our specialists and hospitals and inpatients get the benefit of this product,” says Delany.

Niru Rajakumar, Orion Health vice president of customer success says the company, “is proud to have worked with Southern Cross Healthcare to develop a user-friendly digital surgery admission solution that cuts out the need for paper forms by digitising and streamlining the booking, pre-admission, and patient admission forms.

“It’s quick and simple for the patient to complete their pre-admission information from the comfort of their sofa. The overall goal is to make the process of being admitted to hospital prior to surgery much less stressful for patients.”

Read more from Trevor Delany in his CDO Interview, in Views.