Now we have an EMR, reporting should be easy, right?
Kath Feely1,2,3,4, Lauren Grundy11The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia2The Royal Children’s Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia3Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Parkville, Victoria, Australia4The Royal Women’s Hospital, Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Abstract
There is a general perception that implementation of an electronic medical record (EMR) will facilitate improved access to data and reporting. However, this may not always be the case. This presentation will describe our Allied Health (AH) reporting journey at the Parkville Precinct, Melbourne.
Method
As part of an EMR implementation, clear purpose and reporting requirements need to be articulated early during the design stage. We used early engagement of subject matter experts and key stakeholders to inform the AH core build to ensure essential data could be captured, whilst not being onerous on staff. Build decisions were endorsed by the precinct’s AH Advisory Group. Whilst some reports were created for go-live, data was available to develop additional reports.
Results
Was it easy – not entirely! After 3 years we have developed real time and retrospective reports. Creation of AH EMR Dashboards have provided visibility of current inpatient demand, including KPI targets for responding to referrals. Outpatient information such as referral triage, appointment outcomes and scheduling capacity are also displayed.
Retrospective reports have allowed managers to monitor trends in performance and workload over time, inform operational and business decisions and improve workforce planning.
Discussion
AH now have the capacity to understand performance across the continuum of care and use this information to achieve improvements in effectiveness and efficiency of the workforce. Our next step is to optimise clinical data capture to allow evaluation and improvements to patient care and to become a learning health system.
Biography
Kath Feely has worked in Public Health in Victoria for more than 20 years as a physiotherapist and more recently in clinical informatics and EMR implementations. She is the Chief Allied Health Information Officer at Parkville Precinct. Kath is passionate about using technology and data to evaluate and improve clinical service delivery and patient outcomes. In 2021 Kath received a Brilliant Women in Digital Health award from Telstra Health.