A pilot project to give community nurses in Ireland Blackberry communicators shows early promise.
The communicators helped cut the time nurses spent filing allowing them more time to look after their patients.
Ireland's Southern Health Board (SHB) is revamping their entire records with the new technology to make them accurate, up-to-date and easy to query.
Following the successful test run involving 2,000 nurses the system will be expanded for the entire region will give all 98,000 staff in the consolidated health service access to electronic patient records.
Ursula O'Sullivan, one of the SHB technology managers behind the project, is a big fan of the new system, which enables nurses to get records while they are on the road.
ÔIt gives them a whole extra day to visit people and they're confident that the information is up to date for the patient they are seeing,Õ she said.
ÔThey no longer need the actual files,Õ she said.
The electronic overhaul helped to tidy up the reams of paperwork needed for patientÕs records.
It was used to unearth numerous unnecessary duplicates as well.
As a result it also cleared up mistakes in the boardÕs waiting lists were often one person was entered multple times for a single operation.
And above all the project has already save money Ð approximately 1 million euros in postage as it has stopped the sending out of redundant repeat appointment notices.
GPs in local surgeries have also benefited. Now that they have been given instant access to up to date records of treatments patients have received they no longer have to waste time waiting for paper files to be sent out to them.
The SHB, which serves a community of 600,000 people centred around Cork and along Ireland's southern coast, is now experimenting with video conferencing for consultants and specialists to speed up the process of seeing patients.
Andrew Zilouf
IrelandÕs Healthcare Pushes the Right Buttons
Timesaving electronic communicators given to nurses in Ireland prove to be very popular.
