ronan fagan
A system for the full digitalisation of all healthcare paper-based records should be implemented with immediate effect, local Fianna Fáil Councillor, Frankie Keena, stated this week.
Addressing his fellow elected representatives at the Athlone-Moate Municipal District (AMMD ) meeting on Monday afternoon, Cllr Keena called upon the local authority executive to correspond with the Minister for Health, Minister for Public Expenditure and the HSE’s Chief Information officer to enable such a digitalisation process to commence.
“Our health service is being held back with inefficient paper-based patient records and I am of the belief that it could be a long number of years before a system is put in place where patients’ records are held electronically, where there would be a digital version of an individual’s paper chart which can be accessed across the entire service.
“Those of us who ever visited hospitals or had to stay in a hospital would be very much aware of various medical staff carrying patient files for briefing other colleagues. While this, under the present structure is so important, it does take up a lot of valuable time resources and efficiencies. This becomes more problematic with the need of sharing patient information between hospitals in an urgent and timely manner,” Cllr Keena stated.
The councillor informed his colleagues that St James Hospital was the sole hospital in the country which operates a digitalised patient records system.
“Presently, St James Hospital is the only hospital in the country that is fully electronic, where all patient records are digitalised, but the medical staff can only access this information if the patient is in St James.
“While this is welcome, it is no use if a St James Hospital patient is admitted to Beaumont, Galway Regional or any other hospital in the middle of the night or if a former patient of Tullamore Hospital is urgently admitted to another hospital.
“In case of an emergency in the middle of the night there is no way of medical staff finding out this information unless the family member brings it in. Different hospitals have different systems and doctors are constantly learning new computer systems.
Consultants from different hospitals communicate by post to each other about a shared care of complex patients, while diagnostic investigations are being repeatedly carried out in different facilities for the same patient.
“So much time is wasted with doctors and consultants ringing different hospitals trying to get information on admitted patients, so in this regard I firmly believe that digitalisation is good for prescription accountability and less likely for medication errors than handwritten kardexs where a doctor’s handwriting may be misinterpreted,” Cllr Keena remarked.
Cllr Keena stressed that a nationalised digitalisation system would improve patient care, time and efficiency, ultimately saving resources.
“I am aware that at an Oireachtas health committee the HSE stated that a business case was made to the Department of Public Expenditure in 2018 to fund the extension of digitalisation. This was turned down on the grounds it was necessary to see how the system works in the new national children’s hospital, but this will will not be ready until next year.
“The HSE is now in the process of developing an updated case for a national electronic record system and is in discussions with the Department of Health for its approval,” Cllr Keena said.
Concluding, Cllr Keena called upon the AMMD executive to correspond with the relevant authorities so as to expedite the issue as a matter of urgency.
