Healthcare Software is pleased to announce the successful completion of the Patient Discharge Medication Record (PDMR) pilot in the Launceston General Hospital (LGH).
Healthcare Software's medication management software program, PharmCare, was used throughout the course of the pilot to provide clinical staff with a means to communicate discharge summary information with community healthcare providers. This included the specific medication requirements of patients.
The LGH is a 300 bed public facility that provides acute care for residents of Launceston and the Northern Region of Tasmania. This was an Australian-first initiative aiming to:
- allow contributions to the discharge record by all authorised hospital clinicians, including nurse, pharmacy and allied health staff.
- provide consistent clinical information to all community-based recipients of the summary by compliance with the national standard as mandated by NeHTA.
The intended outcome of this approach was to minimise the likelihood of error - particularly with the use of medications - arising from miscommunication within and between hospital staff and community care providers. This is a major problem in Australian hospitals as more people die from avoidable medication error than on the roads.
Health and Human Services Minister Lara Giddings said the system would provide safe, effective communication;
"There is no room for communication breakdown when lives can be at stake," Ms Giddings said.The LGH implementation of PharmCare was a joint initiative of Healthcare Software, HealthConnect Tasmania and the Launceston General Hospital. This collaborative seeks to establish more efficient healthcare practices and safer environments for patients, through achieving the following:
- increasing the amount of relevant information healthcare providers have access to; and
- generating more effective means to communicate this information.
PharmCare documents specific information relating to the treatment of each patient, allowing medical staff to generate a comprehensive understanding of their capacity to receive and administer medication. It provides hospitals with a number of benefits involving work processes, treatment related costs and health outcomes for patients. PharmCare has already been operating in the Royal Hobart Hospital for six years and in this time has conducted over 100 000 activities for 35 000 patients.