Just a very quick question - are records in one hospital accessible in another hospital? If someone has a procedure in hospital A and then attends hospital B, will hospital B be aware of the patient's history in hospital A?
St James's isn't a HSE hospital, and it does have one of the more advanced electronic health records in the Irish public system, but it is still being rolled out, so you will still find fragmented records there across different department.
In the case of my son he had two different sets of records in the same hospital. The second time he was admitted they were unaware of the first admission. That said I was in Naas hospital a few months back and that's like an episode of Fr. Ted.Just a very quick question - are records in one hospital accessible in another hospital? If someone has a procedure in hospital A and then attends hospital B, will hospital B be aware of the patient's history in hospital A?
The notion that it is a good idea for each hospital to have different systems for recording patient information is mind boggling.Worth
Worth reading up on Section 38 organisations to understand how the large Dublin hospitals and Dublin maternity hospitals and some others are publicly funded but not part of HSE. I don’t know anyone who thinks that bringing them under HSE management would improve them!
Yes, I am probably grossly underestimating how wasteful and inefficient they are in this country.Reading your post, if you don’t mind me saying you have a certain amateur naivety about healthcare organisation.
I'm well aware of the difference.Electronic health records are fundamentally different from ‘electronic reporting systems’.
In my experience as a QA engineer, manager and LEAN practitioner one feeds into the other.Also, it’s unclear whether the problem with the HSE and broader public system is principally structural. There’s a strong argument to be made that it is cultural.
We have one of the best funded healthcare systems in the world. There is absolutely no shortage of resources. The people who work in the Publicly funded healthcare sector choose to waste them, with the resultant suffering and deaths. If it was me I'd be uncomfortable with having that blood on my hands but then again I'm a bit naive.The cost I was putting forward for electronic health records is not an inflated cost due to Irish structures, but pretty well benchmarked internationally. The main reason, I suggest that no progress has been made here is the DPER reluctance to fund, probably as a fallout of the PPARS debacle.
Typically no, with the exception of radiology reports and images. It’s a real problem for continuity of care.Just a very quick question - are records in one hospital accessible in another hospital? If someone has a procedure in hospital A and then attends hospital B, will hospital B be aware of the patient's history in hospital A?
Indeed you are. But no offence intended. LEAN has applications in healthcare. Bolton hospitals was a good example last time I looked. But it is rather more complex overall than that.The notion that it is a good idea for each hospital to have different systems for recording patient information is mind boggling.
The duplication of process and resource has to run into the tens of millions.
Yes, I am probably grossly underestimating how wasteful and inefficient they are in this country.
I'm well aware of the difference.
In my experience as a QA engineer, manager and LEAN practitioner one feeds into the other.
We have one of the best funded healthcare systems in the world. There is absolutely no shortage of resources. The people who work in the Publicly funded healthcare sector choose to waste them, with the resultant suffering and deaths. If it was me I'd be uncomfortable with having that blood on my hands but then again I'm a bit naive.
SJH is a voluntary hospital like the Mater, St Vincent's, Rotunda, etc. They are usually "owned" by trusts/charities/religious orders and the HSE pays them to provide services. They retain a lot of control over their operations, e.g. they may have their own IT dept. It is effectively outsourcing. Similar to the way most schools run. Here's a list of the voluntaries: https://foi.gov.ie/voluntary-hospitals/When someone said that St James's wasn't a HSE hospital I was very surprised. Is it a fact, or someone just saying that it isn't?
Indeed, that's how it can look when obvious problems are pointed out to the institutionalised.Indeed you are.
None taken. This is an internet discussion forum where strangers talk. If people get offended here they need to take a hard look at themselves.But no offence intended.
It certainly does, as do management practices and structures from the latter part of the 20th century (let's not be too ambitious).LEAN has applications in healthcare.
The excuse used the world over by the inept and intransigent to justify their ineptitude and intransigence.But it is rather more complex overall than that.
My wife works in one of the 'voluntary' hospitals. The stories of waste I hear would make your blood boil! I can't imagine the HSE could do much worse!I don’t know anyone who thinks that bringing them under HSE management would improve them!
The legal concerns about the broad data collection and retention of telecom data arising in that case pre-date GDPR, and were red flags under existing Data Protection legislation.Let's see how Graham O'Dwyer's appeal goes...
It depends. The HSE have been rolling out very substantial eHealth initiatives over the past five years or so - see https://www.ehealthireland.ie/ for more details - but given the size, breadth of functions and organisational complexity of the health sector, we're still a long way of integrated systems for all functions for all hospitals. They also did some excellent work over the past 18 months, such as the Covid tracker, the vaccine booking portal and the Covid certificates.Just a very quick question - are records in one hospital accessible in another hospital? If someone has a procedure in hospital A and then attends hospital B, will hospital B be aware of the patient's history in hospital A?
Yes, when they can start from scratch and don't have to build on the foundation of 40 years of ineptitude they can do excellent things.They also did some excellent work over the past 18 months, such as the Covid tracker, the vaccine booking portal and the Covid certificates.
St James's isn't a HSE hospital, and it does have one of the more advanced electronic health records in the Irish public system, but it is still being rolled out, so you will still find fragmented records there across different department..
But generally the Irish publicly funded health system is 20 years behind other health systems in terms of electronic health records - paper records are still predominant. It's a necessary investment to make, and will cost well over a billion over 10 to 15 years.
Don't think there is any single yes/no answer to this. It depends on the function being digitised and the hospital and probably a whole lot of other factors too. There may be cases where it makes sense to digitise recent records, or cases where it is better just to start from day one and work ahead from there. It's hard to see the merit in going back and digitising EVERY patient record of EVERY issue, given the work that would be involved and the likely age of the archives.Does this mean when a hospital joins this system it records a procedure for patients prospectively - i.e. the hospital doesn't digitise its archives but simply records all new procedures from a given date?
IT systems have the annoying requirement that they need to be based in logic. In order for any system like this, or PPARS or anything else to work the underlying system needs to be reformed and standardised. The scope for saving, and the resultant freeing up of resources to improve services and working conditions, is colossal. Unfortunately the vested interests within the industry have too much power to frustrate change.I wouldn't hold your breath. 20 years ago the UK launched the National Programme for Information Technology's NHS Care Records Service to provide a national standards-based interoperable electronic health records system. Unfortunatley, it wasn't a success and incurred significant losses, with the programme being terminated in 2011. Now, if the UK can't deliver an EHRS, I really don't see it happening here.
I lived through it (minor point - it was England not the UK). NPfIT is a great example of how not to do it - centralised command and control, run by ex management consultants, thinking that healthcare isn’t much different from an airline, manufacturing or the London Confestion Charge. Instead healthcare is a high variation sector so the challenges to digitise are significant.I wouldn't hold your breath. 20 years ago the UK launched the National Programme for Information Technology's NHS Care Records Service to provide a national standards-based interoperable electronic health records system. Unfortunatley, it wasn't a success and incurred significant losses, with the programme being terminated in 2011. Now, if the UK can't deliver an EHRS, I really don't see it happening here.