Electronic system puts the focus back on care
Tuesday November 13, 2007 -- Jason Thompson
Using an Emergency Department Management System (EDM) instead of a dry erase white board has allowed the healthcare professionals at Northumberland Hills Hospital (NHH) in Cobourg to spend more time focusing on quality care and less time wading through paper trails.

Linda Calhoun, the program director for emergency and ambulatory care at NHH, says there is a movement in emergency rooms across Canada to implement some form of electronic patient tracking system to help healthcare professionals keep tabs on their patients in real time and provide timely access to patient information.

The system at NHH went live Oct. 23 and is accessible through 14 computer terminals throughout the emergency department. It’s one step in the hospital’s plan to go completely paperless.

Upon arrival at the hospital, patients will present their symptoms to a triage nurse who will record the information electronically rather than on a paper chart. For patients with the new photo health card, the information stored on the card’s magnetic strip will be transferred to the hospital’s electronic system. All information obtained throughout a patient’s hospital stay will be documented in the EDM.

In the short time since the EDM went online, Calhoun says the change has already been noticeable.

For starters, the communication amongst healthcare professionals has been improved. Nurses used to have to follow the paper trail to keep up with their patients. With the electronic system, there’s a single point of entry into the system which eliminates the need for hand-written documents.

“It saves time for us, it becomes much more efficient and it raises our productivity,” Calhoun says.

The EDM has also given emergency department nurses and clinicians a look into what’s happening in the waiting room.

“Internally, we’re only seeing what we’re immediately dealing with and one of the things we noticed with the electronic tracking system is we can all see what’s happening in the waiting room,” Calhoun says. “You become much more aware of those patients still needing to come in for care. That’s been a huge bonus.”

Another important piece is that every clinician, wherever they are in the emergency department, can access their lab work, X-rays and other information with a click of a mouse.

The system also has advantages from a safety perspective. For example, Calhoun says the EDM makes it easier to find out if a patient has any allergies prior to administering medication.