Capital and Coast District Health Board (DHB) in New Zealand is piloting the Resident Guide app for onboarding junior doctors.

The six-month pilot begins in mid-August and involves all resident medical officers (RMOs) at Wellington Hospital.

Junior doctors are rotated around hospitals four times a year and need to quickly upskill on the way things are done at each new location, such as how to book tests and consults with other specialties.

The cloud-based Resident Guide app provides access to a combination of local operational and clinical guidelines.

3DHBs (Capital & Coast, Hutt Valley and Wairarapa DHBs) chief clinical information officer Steve Earnshaw said the aim of introducing Resident Guide is to make access to essential information easier for RMOs to find and engage with.

Earnshaw added that local information is already being loaded into the app and the August start date will provide time to fine tune and make improvements before the transition period in November when a new group of RMOs arrive.

“Change-over is always a difficult time and this will help the new RMOs by providing them with everything they need to know on an app on their phone,” he said.

MedApps co-chief executive Tom Collins said the regular movement of junior doctors is like starting a new job every few months.

“The information is all site specific, so they have to start from scratch every time,” said Collins.

“Resident Guide means that when you rotate you are not making mistakes and it’s a confidence builder for junior doctors who are trying to do the best for themselves and their patients.”

The platform is already live at 28 facilities in Queensland, Australia, where it is also being used by nursing staff.

This article first appeared on eHealthNews.nz.