How patients are admitted for surgery hasn’t changed in decades. The process is antiquated, inefficient and needs to stop.
Our surgeon rooms are not electronically connected to our hospitals. As a result, the rooms can not begin the process of wait listing, scheduling, preparing patients and requesting admission for surgery without completing reams of paperwork and then they must rely on fax or post (some even require the patient to hand deliver it) to get this important and time sensitive information to the hospital.
It doesn’t need to be this way. Hospitals elsewhere have used web based surgical software to electronically integrate the surgeon rooms with the hospital surgical scheduling departments and pre-admission clinics. The Novari ATC software connects the surgeon rooms with the hospitals enabling electronic request for admissions (eRFA).
There is a lot of back and forth between hospitals and surgeon rooms as patients are scheduled (sometimes cancelled and rescheduled) and prepared for surgery. In Australia and New Zealand these communications are largely fax, telephone and even post based. Novari ATC gives the hospital and the surgeon rooms a secure electronic way of communicating with each other. Just the way we all do in our own work and personal lives.
Surgeons have many patients waiting or scheduled for surgery. With new patients being added to surgical lists and patients having surgery every day, coordinating these wait lists with the hospitals and the surgeon rooms is complex. The Novari ATC software’s wait list functionality means the hospital and the surgical rooms always see the same information, always in real-time.
Novari ATC integrates with hospital PAS and scheduling systems (e.g. Cerner, etc.).
“Once a surgeon decides that a patient requires surgery, the process for placing that patient on a public hospital waiting list is nothing short of archaic. It generally requires manual completion of a paper-based form or a digitised equivalent. The essential patient information on these forms are renown for being inadequate, insufficient or omitted. Getting correct or completed information requires considerable work for public hospital booking staff and administrative staff in surgeons’ rooms. It is a labour intensive, error prone, safety suspect and outdated process.
The Novari ATC surgical wait list management system replaces paper, faxes and manual processes to provide hospitals and clinicians with a transparent and efficient process. It manages waiting lists seamlessly from the surgeon’s rooms through to the operating theatre. Every patient is tracked, scheduled and safely prepared for surgery.
In these challenging times with the backlog of surgery due to COVID-19, an efficient software system like that of Novari would provide considerable efficiencies and heightened safety.
I have seen the results of this software in action in busy hospital settings and discussed its benefits with surgeons and administrative staff. I have no doubts it would considerably improve the surgical booking processes in many hospitals in Australia.
Better for surgeons, better for hospitals, better for patients.”
Donald MacLellan MD MBA FRACS.
