06Sep
ARC staff and residents reaping reward from better access to health records
Staff working in aged residential care (ARC) facilities in Te Waipounamu South Island are making good use of access to their residents’ up-to-date health information with more than 2,000 patient records viewed in Health Connect South (HCS) / HealthOne (H1) in July.
The most viewed items included discharge summaries, clinic notes, progress notes, outpatient letters as well as shared care plans and HealthOne primary care information including prescribing and dispensing medicine information and general practice encounter notes.
There are now 131 ARC facilities across the South Island with 490 Registered Nurses who have been provided with access and training for HCS / H1 as part of a wider roll out led by CCN’s Shared Care Planning team, Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Te Waipounamu Regional Programme Office and the HCS / H1 teams.
Rebecca Muir, Shared Care Planning Programme Lead and Product Manager, says with the rollout well over halfway, the wider health system is starting to see the benefits. “Now that so many staff across ARC have access to the shared patient record, another part of the puzzle is complete.
“With more staff from different services across the health system able to view and contribute to shared care records, our community can expect clinicians involved in their care to have a more comprehensive understanding of their journey and be able to make informed decisions about interventions more quickly.”
The onboarding of ARC staff means more than 30 specialities and organisations across the South Island now have access to shared patient information via HCS and H1 including general practice, community pharmacies, public hospital clinicians, NGOs and cross-sector partners including the Department of Corrections and NZ Police.
The benefits for patients and clinicians include:
- timely access to patient test results and other clinical documentation;
- greater understanding of the patient’s background to guide care planning and treatment decisions, particularly around treatment, transport, and referrals;
- improved consistency and co-ordination of patient care across multiple health providers and care settings;
- continuity of care when patients transfer, or return to, ARC facilities;
- efficient access to acute plans and advance care plans to enable prompt and appropriate management for these complex patients;
- improved communication and information sharing between health services, so patients don’t have to repeatedly explain their health information to multiple providers; and
- reduce unnecessary hospital admissions, especially for patients in the last year of life where hospital admission may be unwanted or inappropriate.
ARC facilities interested in gaining access to HCS/H1 can contact Elizabeth.Lear@siapo.health.nz and to access the HCS/H1 training webinars for ARC users, visit healthLearn:
For information about H1 visit healthone.org.nz or for questions about access email healthone.access@pegasus.org.nz
About the Author