This appeared last week:
New Royal Adelaide Hospital opens: CIO talks clinical collaboration and ‘cool’ tech
Lynne Minion | 06 Sep 2017
As the emergency department treated its first patients and the wards continued to be filled yesterday, the much anticipated, $2.4 billion, high-tech Royal Adelaide Hospital was officially open for business.
Since Monday more than 300 patients have been transported the short journey along North Terrace from the old RAH in a fleet of 16 ambulances and an ambulance bus, while the new 65-cubicle emergency department accepted its first patient — a walk-in — just after 7am yesterday.
Following a decade of controversy, including a delay of 17 months, cost blow-outs, political infighting and construction fatalities, the mammoth task of relocating South Australia’s flagship hospital will be complete today when the last patient is transferred.
For Executive Director and CIO at SA Health Bill Le Blanc, the man responsible for implementing the technologies in the third most costly building in the world, it’s the culmination of an “extremely demanding” and collaborative process.
“Probably a more significant challenge than the technology, in my view, is bringing people on the change journey,” Le Blanc told Healthcare IT News Australia.
“This is compounded by the workload on hospital staff having to participate in and support this project while simultaneously maintaining high quality care at the old RAH. It’s been extremely demanding on executive, administrative and clinical staff at all levels.”
For a hospital touted as the most technologically advanced in Australia, according to Le Blanc the process to now has been clinically led.
“The technology was designed as an integral part of the entire program. It is part and parcel of the new model of care and its integration into hospital business processes was designed in collaboration with the most senior clinicians. It needed to be a clinically led initiative, supported by the latest technology, not the other way around,” he said.
“One example of this was the Activation Committee. This was one forum where leaders of all hospital disciplines met to discuss the what and the how they would move from current practices to new business models and their interdependencies upon each other.
“The technology was an integrated part of that whole activation journey and not handled as an independent stream of activity. This type of clinical collaboration, in my view, is the key to a successful implementation.”
The outcome is a hospital designed to not only integrate today’s best tech but to anticipate the future.
“There is so much leading edge technology to talk about but the stuff with the most ‘cool’ quotient would be robotics, wireless location, and clinical digital integration.”
Robotics
The new RAH has the largest Automated Guided Vehicles fleet in Australia, with 25 driverless AGV robots moving over 1600 trolleys each day delivering food, linen, medication and surgical instruments throughout the facility. They work behind the scenes, travelling via 14 dedicated lifts and 27 lift lobbies. Benefits include increased efficiency and traceability, decreased costs and reduced damage to equipment that would otherwise be manually wheeled by staff.
Both of the pharmacies use medication-dispensing robots. The robotic dispensing units automate dispensing of prescriptions, picking both imprest orders and outpatient prescriptions, and manage a centralised inventory.
This technology decreases dispensing errors and frees pharmacist time to focus on the quality and effectiveness of medicine use. It also decreases turnaround time for dispensing, improving productivity, and reduces the amount of inventory required by 20-30 per cent and reduce wastage from expired stock.
There are more than 100 automated dispensing cabinets in patient wings to support the accurate and timely distribution of medicines. Nurses input the patient-ID and biometric authorisation via staff fingerprint. The ward-based cabinet ejects a drawer containing only the medication (and correct dosage) prescribed for the patient, reducing the time nurses require to administer medication.
This technology also contributes to significant reduction in medications lost through ‘diversion’, especially for narcotics and other controlled drugs.
Since Monday more than 300 patients have been transported the short journey along North Terrace from the old RAH in a fleet of 16 ambulances and an ambulance bus, while the new 65-cubicle emergency department accepted its first patient — a walk-in — just after 7am yesterday.
Following a decade of controversy, including a delay of 17 months, cost blow-outs, political infighting and construction fatalities, the mammoth task of relocating South Australia’s flagship hospital will be complete today when the last patient is transferred.
For Executive Director and CIO at SA Health Bill Le Blanc, the man responsible for implementing the technologies in the third most costly building in the world, it’s the culmination of an “extremely demanding” and collaborative process.
“Probably a more significant challenge than the technology, in my view, is bringing people on the change journey,” Le Blanc told Healthcare IT News Australia.
“This is compounded by the workload on hospital staff having to participate in and support this project while simultaneously maintaining high quality care at the old RAH. It’s been extremely demanding on executive, administrative and clinical staff at all levels.”
For a hospital touted as the most technologically advanced in Australia, according to Le Blanc the process to now has been clinically led.
“The technology was designed as an integral part of the entire program. It is part and parcel of the new model of care and its integration into hospital business processes was designed in collaboration with the most senior clinicians. It needed to be a clinically led initiative, supported by the latest technology, not the other way around,” he said.
“One example of this was the Activation Committee. This was one forum where leaders of all hospital disciplines met to discuss the what and the how they would move from current practices to new business models and their interdependencies upon each other.
“The technology was an integrated part of that whole activation journey and not handled as an independent stream of activity. This type of clinical collaboration, in my view, is the key to a successful implementation.”
The outcome is a hospital designed to not only integrate today’s best tech but to anticipate the future.
“There is so much leading edge technology to talk about but the stuff with the most ‘cool’ quotient would be robotics, wireless location, and clinical digital integration.”
Robotics
The new RAH has the largest Automated Guided Vehicles fleet in Australia, with 25 driverless AGV robots moving over 1600 trolleys each day delivering food, linen, medication and surgical instruments throughout the facility. They work behind the scenes, travelling via 14 dedicated lifts and 27 lift lobbies. Benefits include increased efficiency and traceability, decreased costs and reduced damage to equipment that would otherwise be manually wheeled by staff.
Both of the pharmacies use medication-dispensing robots. The robotic dispensing units automate dispensing of prescriptions, picking both imprest orders and outpatient prescriptions, and manage a centralised inventory.
This technology decreases dispensing errors and frees pharmacist time to focus on the quality and effectiveness of medicine use. It also decreases turnaround time for dispensing, improving productivity, and reduces the amount of inventory required by 20-30 per cent and reduce wastage from expired stock.
There are more than 100 automated dispensing cabinets in patient wings to support the accurate and timely distribution of medicines. Nurses input the patient-ID and biometric authorisation via staff fingerprint. The ward-based cabinet ejects a drawer containing only the medication (and correct dosage) prescribed for the patient, reducing the time nurses require to administer medication.
This technology also contributes to significant reduction in medications lost through ‘diversion’, especially for narcotics and other controlled drugs.
More here:
What struck me with all this is how there has been some really advanced thinking in the technological infrastructure for the hospital while Mr LeBlanc did not even mention the core Hospital Information System (ePas). I wonder where that is up to within the tech marvel?
Of course no mention of the myHR!
Of course no mention of the myHR!
David.
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