New Zealand can learn lessons of EHR projects worldwide

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eHealthNews editor Rebecca McBeth

PICTURE: Richard Corbridge

HiNZ keynote speaker Richard Corbridge says learning from electronic health record roll-outs around the world offers the New Zealand health sector the opportunity to get it right here.

New Zealand can learn from the failures and successes of electronic health record implementations around the world, says HiNZ 2018 keynote speaker Richard Corbridge.

The New Zealand government is considering the indicative business case for a national EHR.

Corbridge was chief executive officer of eHealth Ireland during its EHR project and will discuss at this year’s HiNZ conference how his team learnt lessons from the successes and failures of the United Kingdom’s attempt to roll-out a national EHR under its National Programme for IT a decade earlier.

“New Zealand, like Ireland, can learn so many lessons from the many countries that have gone ahead,” he says.

A key lesson is the need to push hard for vendors to be completely interoperable from the very beginning.

“New Zealand can make sure it doesn’t get locked into systems and that information follows the patients, which is the most important benefit that we are trying to get out of this,” Corbridge says.

Another key learning from the UK and Ireland’s experience is the critical role of clinical engagement and leadership.

“NPfIT didn’t work from a clinical leadership point of view, and what we have seen more and more in Ireland and the UK is if you have chief clinical information officers and empower them to deliver digital projects then the projects are more successful,” he says.

“So, when you are trying to build new ways of working, absolutely make sure they are 100 per cent about clinical engagement and leadership.”

He says clinical leaders should not just be doctors and consultants but draw from nurses and allied health professionals.

Corbridge is chief digital information officer at Leeds NHS Trust where there are three CCIOs: clinical, nursing, and innovation and research.

Corbridge will also present at HiNZ 2018 on digital transformation and the changes in a delivery team/function required to move from IT to digital.

He says IT projects involve substituting paper processes for electronic ones, while digital projects involve redefining the way healthcare is delivered.

“Over the last six to seven years this word ‘digital’ has become more and more prevalent. For me, the difference between IT and digital is when you move from simply employing tin and wires and move to a place where you’re actually talking about business change and altering the things you do,” he tells eHealthNews.nz.

“When it works well, it starts to be a different technology-supported way of delivering healthcare. When it is the IT, the process doesn’t improve, it simply moves behind glass and that can be a more cumbersome way of working, in reality.”

He says the majority of EHRs deployed internationally simply substitute paper processes for electronic ones, and he believes that “we need to understand what IT can do differently to start delivering healthcare better”.

An example of how an EHR might operate in a digital world involves a clinician viewing their patient list on their mobile phone while walking into the hospital. The system then plans their ward round based on geographic location of the clinician and the patients, and their criticality.

The clinician could add to the EHR simply by speaking into their phone, updating patient details in real time and ensuring the IT is not in the way of the patient interaction, Corbridge explains.

He adds that it is not that IT is the wrong thing to do and digital the right one. However, it is important to understand the difference, as it is only when processes go digital that the real gains around productivity, patient and clinician satisfaction, and patient outcomes can be made.

The HiNZ annual conference is being held on 21–23 November 2018 at Wellington’s TSB Arena.

Read more about the HiNZ Conference - click here >>

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