PM Network - August 2016

Healthcare organizations want to spend less on overhead and more on patient care. To enable it to screen more women for breast cancer, BreastScreen Victoria (BSV), based in Carlton, Australia, sponsored a five-year electronic records management project, which launched in 2013. Its goal was simple: make BSV a paperless organization by 2018.

“We had a situation where every woman we
screened had a paper file, and every two years when
she’d come in for screening we’d add a handful of
forms to her file. The file would just grow and grow
and grow,” says Greg Maudsley, a senior project
manager at BSV. “Every time a woman came in we’d
need to pay for that file to be retrieved from our
archive. If we could eliminate that expense, we could
redirect the cost toward screening more women.”
The project promises benefits beyond just freeing
up funds for more screenings, though. Electronic
record systems also can boost quality and efficiency
of care. “While a radiologist is reviewing images of the
breast, they can now go into our information system
and have that woman’s full clinical record right in
front of them,” Mr. Maudsley says. “All of that clinical
information is now readily accessible at the desktop to
help the radiologist determine whether there’s a need
to recall women for further testing.”
For the project to deliver these clinical ben-
efits, the project team first had to gather busi-
ness requirements. But getting clinical feedback on
design proposals is easier said than done. Because
BSV’s radiologists are always at capacity and distrib-
uted across the state, Mr. Maudsley had to make it
convenient for them to contribute to system design.

to involve the legal department from the beginning; if you don’t take into account their opinions early in the project, even if it means adding to the project timeline and budget, the project might end up being stopped or delayed to comply with the law.”

The key to success in this regard is having a “ privacy by design” mindset, says Mr. Denov.

“If you build a system and try to put privacy in afterwards, it won’t be easy, cheap or simple.”

CONNECT THE DOTS

Given healthcare IT projects’ unique mix of
clinical and technical requirements, project
leaders for these initiatives should ideally
have dual expertise. But for HCL Avitas’
EHR project, it was initially difficult to find clinicians
with the right blended clinical and IT mindset, Mr.
Sarojani says. “Fortunately, over the last two years
I’ve seen a lot of clinicians focused on learning and
building careers in health informatics. Identifying
people with that expertise and bringing them on
early is key.”
The implementation is now in its second phase,
and so far the EHR project has been a great suc-
cess, Mr. Sarojani says. More than 90 percent of the
organization’s full-time doctors are using EHRs, and
many patients appreciate the convenience.

“Doctors who pushed back initially because they thought it was a data-entry activity are starting to realize the value. And patients see the benefits of not having to carry their records with them during repeat visits,” he says. Patients can now log in to a mobile application and check their medical records, update their conditions and medications, and also send messages to clinic staff. “The project is a great win-win for clinicians and patients.” PM