Studies in health technology and informatics
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Measuring the performance of electronic health records: a case study in residential aged care in Australia.
Measuring the performance of electronic health records (EHR) is an important, yet un-resolved challenge. Various measurements have addressed different aspects of EHR success, yet a holistic, comprehensive measurement tool needs to be developed to capture the potential EHR success variables completely. ⋯ The instrument was used to measure the performance of aged care EHR systems in three aged care organizations. The results suggest that the instrument was reliable.
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The complexity of hospital operations ensures that one-size-fits-all solutions seldom work. As hospitals turn to evidence based strategies to redesign flow, it is critical that they tailor the strategies to suit their individual service. This paper analyses the effect of hospital occupancy on inpatient and emergency department patient flow parameters at the Caboolture hospital in Queensland, Australia, and identifies critical levels, or choke points, that result in performance decline. ⋯ We compare these findings to a previous study that has analysed patient flow across Queensland hospitals grouped by size, and discover several differences in the interaction between rising occupancy and patient flow parameters including rates of patient flow, length of stay, and access block. We also identify significantly higher choke points for Caboolture hospital as compared to other similarly sized Queensland hospitals, which suggest that patient flow here can be redesigned to operate at higher levels of occupancy without degrading flow performance. The findings support arguments for hospitals to analyse patient flow at a service level to deliver optimum service improvement.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Design of the asthma treat smart system in a pediatric institution.
Asthma is one of the most common chronic pediatric conditions. Providing evidence-based, guideline-appropriate care for asthma is complex. A computerized system may help providers with guideline compliance. ⋯ Severity and medication recommendation are provided for the provider. A personalized action plan and medication summary including medications, etc. is created. The system is successfully used in 6 outpatient clinics and current work is focused on integration with the electronic health record.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Observational StudyDeveloping and applying a cross-disciplinary team handover information system.
In order to avoid medical errors, it is very important to communicate with the medical team correctly, timely and efficiently. One of main reasons for the poor outcome of multidisciplinary handover in hospital is lacking effective tools for multidisciplinary handover. The project aimed to develop a workflow-based multidisciplinary handover information system, integrated with medical record browsing, multidisciplinary handover and event tracking, to improve the correctness and effectiveness of communication among the medical team members.
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Stud Health Technol Inform · Jan 2013
Developing a multivariate electronic medical record integration model for primary health care.
This paper describes the development of a multivariate electronic medical record (EMR) integration model for the primary health care setting. Our working hypothesis is that an integrated EMR is associated with high quality primary health care. ⋯ To test the face validity of this model, a Delphi study is being planned where health care providers and information technology professionals involved with EMR adoption are polled for their feedback. This model has the potential to quantify and explain the factors that influence successful EMR integration to improve primary health care.