South Island aged care facilities access electronic shared care record

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

Nearly 170 aged residential care (ARC) facilities across the South Island now have access to their residents' shared electronic care records via Health Connect South / HealthOne.

This ensures ARC staff have access to up-to-date information including lab results, transfer of care letters, outpatient appointments, and shared care plans to aid with planning and managing their residents’ care.

HealthOne general manager Rachael Page will be presenting on the project during Digital Health Week in Rotorua this December 5-8, alongside Canterbury Clinical Network shared care planning programme lead and product manager Rebecca Muir.

She says 38 sites had been successfully trialling access to HealthOne when emergency Covid-19 funding was allocated in February 2022, for a rapid roll-out to all South Island facilities.

"Having access to a resident's shared care record is really critical during an outbreak," she says.

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Around 80 percent of facilities are now live and the team is hoping for 90 percent by the end of this year.

The funding covered licensing costs, technology implementation and training for staff.

All registered healthcare workers in the facilities have access, currently provided via a Citrix solution. The plan is to move them all to a web-based solution, which is under development, says Page.

Val Whatley, clinical manager at Elmswood Retirement Village, says access to additional information in real-time has a significant impact for residents and staff, especially in relation to the hospital discharge process.

“Previously we had to follow up with the geriatric nurse specialist or the discharge summary team at the hospital, but now we can access records, see what they are doing and when they are doing it: it is much quicker and means we can prepare what the resident needs before they arrive back into our care,” she says.

At one of the weekly GP-led clinics at the village, access to the up-to-date information helped the team understand and plan investigations.

“We were able to look at one of our resident’s previous bloodwork," explains Whatley.

"Having access to the results meant we could decide to alter the blood tests taken in our clinic so we did not have to repeat tests and could explore a different avenue."

Muir says the rollout has vast benefits for the wider system.

“Having access to their resident’s health record can assist in informing care decisions, which can lead to reducing unnecessary or inappropriate treatments and hospital transfers," she says.

"It also means ARC staff can view, create and review their residents’ Shared Care Plans, including Advance Care Plans, Shared Goals of Care and Acute Plans.”



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