The following appeared today.
Fears for patients amid e-record troubles
The NSW government and senior health bureaucrats have been accused of putting the lives of patients at risk by ignoring the concerns of clinicians over the troubled deployment of the FirstNet electronic patient records and administration system.
The key points of the article are:
1. Some departments have reverted to using paper for patient records.
2. The concerns centre on the time it takes to enter and retrieve details.
More here (subscription required)
Those who have been watching will know this issue was covered a while ago on the blog.
See:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2009/11/nsw-health-cerner-and-professor-patrick.html
and here:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-release-of-jon-patrick-essay-on.html
and here:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2009/11/professor-patrick-releases-new-version.html
The opposition Health Spokesman in NSW (Ms Jillian Skinner) has apparently also been briefed on issues in the metro hospitals as well as the known issues at more regional hospitals.
As always the silence from NSW Health is deafening.
The mess just continues unfixed it seems.
Let me know if things are better anywhere so we can let people know.
David.
Let's face it - The Cerner system is designed for the American health system which operates quite differently from the Australian health system. The Australian health system has it roots of derivation in the UK; so too does New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malaysia. The American health systems business processes are quite different.
ReplyDeleteSquare pegs do not fit in round holes.
Australia's health system comprises 2% of the global market.
Cerner as an American software house does not, has not and will not tailor its large and complex system for a few sites down under apart from a few minor cosmetic changes. Consequently Australian customers have to change the way they operate rather than vice versa. The United Kingdom has experienced similar issues.
The fundamental problem is obvious.
You have identified the root cause of the problem. It is probably now far too advanced to do much about it. The solution lies in having a viable vibrant home grown health software industry. But that is not possible without local support and demand for home grown technology.
ReplyDeleteThe Australian health system is dependent on solutions from overseas. It has no effective defence against invasion by marauders intent on rape and pillage with the exception of iSoft and Trak. That begs the question - can iSoft and TrakHealth compete with Cerner? Only if the bureaucrats permit which is highly unlikely because they have invested too much political capital in the root cause of the problem.
So the NSW Opposition Health Spokeswoman says that some un-named people at Westmead and Liverpool have "confidentially" told her they are not happy with the new system - well that must be true then, thanks for letting us know Jillian! Interesting definition of "new" though - Westmead have had Cerner Firstnet for 2 or 3 years now and I think Liverpool at least as long. Still, no reason to let the facts get in the way of a good story.
ReplyDeleteAnd it has been documented in ALL my published research findings thus far. The data drawn from Australia. We need to learn from mistakes others have made, not to duplicate them.
ReplyDelete