Synopsis:
RCH cannot aspire to be a GREAT children’s hospital, leading the way, if it continues to rely on paper-based records and antiquated systems for communications and patient care transactions.
The new RCH was designed to be a fully electronic (“digital”) hospital but this didn’t eventuate – we still do most of our day to day work on paper. We will explain why this didn’t happen and outline the vision and plans to introduce a New Electronic Medical Record at RCH.
A well-implemented comprehensive EMR has the potential to enhance the quality of patient care, improve the experience of clinical staff in caring for patients, lead to a better healthcare experiences for families. It could greatly improve our ability to plan, manage, and use resources efficiently. It also has great potential to facilitate clinical research. These are very big expectations and they will only be met by selecting the most suitable system and implementing it in a way that genuinely supports the work of staff at the hospital. Experience elsewhere suggests that 25% of the success of an EMR lies in the “software” and 75% depends upon how a hospital designs, implements, and uses the system. Internationally some  hospitals have implemented an EMR but failed to achieve the benefits they hoped for.
The real key to success is staff engagement in the EMR development process, so WE NEED YOU!  We will explain how you can be involved and help ensure we get the most benefit out of this major project, the budget for which is larger than any hospital EMR implementation in Australia to date.
The EMR project will radically change the way we all work – perhaps more so than the move into our new building did. Change is always difficult and the journey may be bumpy but, if we get it right, the destination should be well worth the ride. We invite you to participate in making this project a success. With your help we can achieve the full potential benefit of an EMR for us, and ultimately for our patients.

Speakers:
·        Mike South is a Paediatrician and The Chief Medical Information Officer at RCH
·        Adrian Hutchinson is the Unit Manager of PICU, and Nursing Lead for the EMR Project
·        Jackie McLeod is the Program Director for the EMR Project