Mackay HHS has leapt into the age of digital healthcare with the completion of the ieMR (Integrated Electronic Medical Record) rollout across all rural sites.
Clermont Hospital was the last of seven spoke sites in addition to the Mackay Base Hospital hub to be welcomed to the digital world on 18 March following Dysart Hospital in February.
Mackay HHS became the seventh fully digital health service in Queensland following rollouts across Metro South, Children’s, Gold Coast, West Moreton, Sunshine Coast and Townsville HHS.
Cairns and Hinterland HHS will be the next HHS to go fully digital this year.
The Mackay HHS ieMR hub and spoke project incorporated two waves of implementation. Wave one started with Sarina Hospital in April last year, making it the first rural hospital in Queensland to be born digital, followed by Bowen Hospital in June and Proserpine and Whitsunday Community Health in July.
Wave two included Collinsville Hospital and Moranbah Hospital in November, Dysart Hospital and Middlemount Community Health Service in February and Clermont Hospital on 18 March. The new Moranbah Hospital, which opened 26 November, was the second hospital in the Mackay HHS to be born digital.
Mackay HHS nursing director of Digital Health Solution Seana Clarke said the purpose of the hub and spoke project was to make medical records visible across the state.
ieMR delivered an integrated suite of digital healthcare services that improved safety, efficiency and quality in clinical workflow processes and underscored Mackay HHS’s commitment to enhancing patient safety through innovative technology.
“The rural rollout of ieMR has transformed how we deliver patient care throughout the Mackay HHS,” she said.
“As a fully digital health service, staff across all eight facilities can capture and analyse patient data in real-time, integrate medical devices into digital workflows and improve service delivery for both our patients and our health colleagues,” Seana said.
“Rolling out the ieMR into the Mackay HHS rural sites has helped close the digital gap between Mackay hospital and its rural sites and improved patient care, increasing accessibility to patient records across Queensland.”
This streamlined processes, improved clinical workflows as well as both the clinician and patient experience, eHealth Queensland hub and spoke project director Trina Adams said.
“Sarina Hospital was the very first hospital to go live in April last year as part of the Hub and Spoke Project and the rest of the 31 sites took advantage of the significant lessons learned,” Trina said.
“The Mackay HHS team put their lessons into action and by the time we finished with Clermont it was extremely demonstrable in how flawless the delivery had become.
“This is a testament to the team and to the sites in which we were implementing, their leadership, comradery and ‘we can do this’ attitude.
“Some of the feedback we have had from clinicians and patients alike demonstrated the benefit and success of this project and for that we are very proud.”
Collinsville Hospital went live on November 6 making it the 19th hospital in Queensland to be rolled out in ieMR in 2024.
The Moranbah Hospital was the second Mackay HHS site to be born digitally on 26 November and was the 21st site to go live.
The ieMR modernises patient records by providing a digital platform, incorporating an array of health care services applications to replace the need for paper-based records.
