THE rollout of the government's My Health Record system and integration with dispensing software in NSW's Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District has returned early positive results for patient care by picking up missing medications information and saving time for clinicians, particularly after hours.
NSW Health has been running a "benefits realisation program" with a focus on the Nepean District evaluating the degree to which the My Health Record system has been embedded into the state's HealtheNet system and into clinical workflow.
Around 98% of people in the region now have a My Health Record following last year's trial of opt-out participation, and the area is now seeing about 1,500 shared health summaries uploaded by local GPs and 32,000 dispensing records uploaded by community pharmacists on a monthly basis.
Medications information from the state's iPharmacy system is also shortly to be added, according to HealtheNet benefits realisation lead Jo-Anna Wood.
All 207 hospitals in NSW are able to view HealtheNet within the EMR, and it also provides access to the My Health Record data.
"There is the PBS report in the Medicare information, and the pharmacists have found this information really useful, particularly if it's after hours," Wood said.
"When the GP presses print on the prescription and it prints out the barcode, a copy goes up to the prescription exchange service and to the My Health Record.
"You can then start to match that up with a dispense record coming from retail pharmacies.
"Clinicians are finding it incredibly useful to see that it has been prescribed by the GP and then dispensed by the pharmacist."
Nepean Hospital director of pharmacy described an instance where the system contributed to saving a patient's life.
A diabetic patient admitted with worsening heart failure was only charted with one drug for her diabetes, but the pharmacist was able to look into the My Health Record and HealtheNet and see that she was actually on three different diabetes-related medications.
Wood explained, "They were able to treat her for what she was admitted for but also her other conditions and get her diabetes under control."
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