Electronic ED discharge summaries roll out in our hospitals

Here at Hustling Solutions Squad (HSS), we’re never not thinking of ways we can help our customers to provide excellent healthcare.

Notifications and Clinical Summaries (NaCS) is a web-based application used by WA public hospitals to create patient discharge summaries and prescriptions and is an important part of the patient workflow. A discharge summary can be sent to a patient’s GP, and includes information about their hospital visit, such as procedures, clinical synopsis, diagnostic investigations, any prescribed medications, etc.

Dr Lynda Vine, Medical Consultant at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, identified a need to consolidate and coordinate ED discharge information across public hospitals, and reached out to HSS to initiate a solution together.

“The interface between hospitals and GPs is a key point at which a patients’ health care journey can be impacted. Implementing a good quality communication process that is simple, consistent, reliable and timely is critical for both staff and patients,” said Dr Vine.

Working closely with the Core Clinical Systems team, the Statewide ED Discharge Summary Working Group (SEDDWG), led by Dr Vine and deputy chair Huw Clark, developed a secure, electronic ED discharge summary messaging system.

The Core Clinical Systems team (along with HIH , EDIS and WebPAS teams) adapted and streamlined the existing patient discharge summary template used in for inpatients, to suit an Emergency Department workflow. The result is a “lite” discharge summary and removes the mandatory requirement to fill in a long list of medications and detail. If the patient has a GP, and it is sent via secure message to the patient’s GP and the patient is provided with a summary to deliver in person.

The adapted ED patient discharge summary was developed in response to a unanimous requirement to have a consistent workflow and single format discharge summary used across all public Emergency Departments in WA. Such a request could never be successful without careful and comprehensive collaboration and input from all stakeholders, which is how this project operated.

The HIH, WebPAS and EDIS teams at HSS worked closely with representatives from HSPs, who were generous with their time and expertise. In particular Fiona Stanley Hospital provided valuable research, by delivering a Proof of Concept with the whole ED team, and in consultation with GPs for quality of data.

The updated workflow has been successfully rolled out across Fiona Stanley, Rockingham and some regional hospitals, and will be implemented in the coming months to the remainder of WA Health Emergency Departments.

Benefits to the ED discharge enhancements include secure message delivery of discharge summaries to primary health providers (as opposed to a fax), leading to higher successful delivery rates, significantly improved formatting, better quality content curation and consistency between EDs - thereby improving communication to GPs. The developments also provide a better pathway to phase out of the existing legacy ED discharge summary notification system to primary health providers, Communik8.

The project has demonstrated that with the right engagement, key players and a lot of persistence, it is possible to achieve your vision.

Raji Kandiah, Manager Core Clinical Systems, recently spent some non-work time in a hospital environment, and noted the feeling of seeing products, applications and workflows HSS works on, helping to literally save lives. “It’s so fulfilling to see your products in a hospital,” said Raji. “That’s why I do what I do and why I’m here!”