MDHB News

Concerto Clinical Workstation

The Concerto Clinical Workstation project is a technology project focusing on providing electronic patient information to MidCentral DHB staff and approved health providers in a timely, secure and easy way.

Background

MidCentral DHB is currently heavily dependent on paper-based health records supported by a number of clinical and departmental information systems. This does not adequately support the healthcare process as information is sometimes incomplete and unavailable at the point of care.

As the number of clinicians involved in a patient contact increases, this becomes increasingly problematic. This is especially true when care is delivered in different locations and by different parts of the health sector, for instance secondary care delivered in hospitals and primary or follow up care delivered by General Practitioners.

Patients are now more mobile across health care providers and the flow of information is a key enabler in supporting sound clinical decision-making and maintaining continuity of care. Frustratingly, paper-based records are not always available at point of care, and information is not always complete and can only be accessed by one clinician at a time.

A clinical workstation enables clinicians to view integrated patient information via a single, secure web-based system, regardless of the underlying “feeder” applications. Information delivered through a clinical workstation becomes consistent and easy to interpret because it is presented through a common interface.

This business case implements Concerto core functionality enabling clinicians to work more productively. It is, however, the delivery of subsequent functionality such as electronic referrals that enables greater benefits to be realised. These are also discussed in the business case.

Strategically, Concerto is important because:

It will be a key enabler for the delivery of integrated healthcare across the region. Indeed, the vision for Concerto is that it will be the single clinical workstation used by clinicians to access information from anywhere within the Central region.
It will be the (on-line) delivery mechanism for electronic discharges, electronic referrals and laboratory results between primary and secondary care.
It is also an integral component in the “Transforming Primary Health Care Services” business case prepared in response to the Ministry of Heath’s “Better, Sooner, More Convenient” vision.

This business case recommends that MidCentral DHB implements Orion Health’s Concerto clinical workstation. The project has a capital value of $1,495,105.

The business case has been through clinical and management review within MidCentral DHB. It has also been reviewed by primary care and the Ministry of Health.