DHB builds clinical info system

Counties Manukau District Health Board plans to expand its lab reporting system into a full clinical information repository and replace dozens of small databases.

Counties Manukau District Health Board plans to expand its lab reporting system into a full clinical information repository and replace dozens of small databases.

The south Auckland DHB uses Sysmex Delphic’s Web Eclair for reporting lab results, but Phil Brimacombe, CIO at Counties Manukau and Waitemata DHBs, says Web Eclair provides much more than that.

“It’s a full data reporting system, and we’ll make use of features we don’t presently use.”

Counties Manukau is running two small pilots of the clinical repository model, one for cardiology and the other for feet affected by diabetes.

“We’re capturing clinical observations and documents and images into the repository. They’re available to any clinician involved in the patient’s care via the clinician’s workstation.”

The DHB currently uses dozens of Access databases to record patient information in specific areas such as cardiology. Brimacombe says the ultimate aim is to extend the clinical repository model across them all, replacing the isolated database model.

“We have islands of patient information dotted around and, over time, we’ll pull them together. It’s not going to happen overnight.”

The organisation’s Web Eclair licence allows it to utilise many functions in addition to lab results reporting without changes to the terms.

“There are some licensing implications for some features, but most are out of the box.”

The DHB is also to build a data warehouse, to be accessed according to different key performance indicators.

Picking the correct KPIs is more important than what sort of data warehouse or who the vendors are, Brimacombe says.

“KPI reporting itself isn’t the difficult part of the journey. It’s a case of picking the right KPIs.”

Possible key indicators include immunisation rates and risk factors for cardiovascular patients.

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Tags Counties Manukau District Health Board

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