University Hospital Geelong is upgrading its emergency department clinical workflows with the aim of delivering quality, patient-centred clinical care.
The healthcare organisation will soon go-live with its new FirstNet ED Information System (EDIS), from Cerner, and replaces the Symphony ED System that it used previously as it is no longer supported in Australia.
Cerner FirstNet is an integrated emergency solution that supports a wide range of functions including registration, triage and tracking, checking nursing documentation, managing physician transfer of care, and integration of documentation into a patient's Electronic Health Record (EHR), all in one system.
It also lets the healthcare practitioner include and manage a patient’s past medical, family, social or surgical history, in addition to keeping a record of a patient’s transfer movements.
Barwon Health Chief Information Officer Associate Professor Sharon Hakkennes told HITNA that Cerner’s emergency information system was picked following a comprehensive procurement process and will be critical in supporting its goals of high-quality, patient-centred clinical care across the entire care continuum into the future.
“We have worked closely with Cerner to ensure the system functions with our current workflows and processes,” Hakkennes said.
“The switch to FirstNet has required staff training and preparation in order to minimise clinical disruption and maximise the benefits of the new system when we go live.”
According to Hakkennes, implementation of FirstNet at the University Hospital Geelong is aligned to Barwon Health’s strategy to implement a fully integrated EHR over the coming years.
“The EHR will enable seamless transfer of health information across Barwon Health services, general practice and other health services, and will support upload of information to My Health Record,” Hakkennes said.
“The importance of such functionality cannot be underestimated given the growing population of the Barwon region and the increasing burden of chronic disease.”
[Read more: Allscripts and Cerner offer glimpses at tech priorities in new earnings reports | Cerner tops the EHR global market share with almost double that of closest rival Epic]
Most recently, Bass Coast Health migrated its systems to experience the benefits of a complete EMR solution, having equipped its healthcare facility with MasterCare EMR.
The solution will be used by Bass Coast Health clinicians to govern the assessment and management plans of clients, along with the monitoring and measuring of ongoing outcomes.
The contract between Cerner and University Hospital Geelong also follows the former’s largest ever EHR undertaking in the US, announcing in October last year that it will support the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ transition from its legacy VistA EHR, alongside 24 vendors.
