INSIGHTS
While patients’ length of stay and identification details have long been digitised in the healthcare sector, it was not the case for clinical data. Before the EMR, thick cases of clinical notes were used and handed to the medical records office for entering into the system by non-medically trained staff. Today, the EMR reduces the need for hardcopy notes, while enabling clinicians to input or retrieve real-time, detailed information about patients.
“The fact that we have deployed Sunrise for all of our institutions—from primary care to speciality centres to emergency departments—means that information from various care settings is available to all the users on the same platform. This gives healthcare teams a more holistic view of the patient’s condition,”
Dr. Goh Min Liong
Group Chief Medical Informatics Officer, SingHealth
SingHealth’s EMR platform started with data on clinical investigation
results and over the years, expanded to include information on medications,
procedure reports and patient vital signs. Currently, it also houses all clinical
notes—both historical (scanned) hardcopies as well as those entered directly
into the system by clinicians.
Digitised information from a large set of patients can also be used for
analytics. For example, a good data set can lend itself to endless applications
such as enabling healthcare professionals to study trends and predict
surgery durations to optimise the use of operating theatres, to explore ways
of reducing waiting time at clinics or and even to minimise parking woes for
visitors.
Supported better clinical decisions using comprehensive data
The Sunrise platform is rich in features, but there have also been situations
in which certain native functionalities were not suitable for the users’ needs.
However, given the flexibility of the system, SingHealth has been able to
develop and build on the platform to deploy customised tools to improve
processes.
“Altera is a partner that is committed to working with its clients to achieve
their organisations’ goals. As healthcare needs evolve and new innovations
transform the way we deliver care, SingHealth will continue to enhance our
existing IT and data infrastructure through systems such as Sunrise, so that we can improve patient outcomes and experiences, and stay ahead of the curve for our patients,” said Mr Benedict Tan, Group Chief Digital Strategy Officer.
About the Client:
SingHealth
SingHealth is Singapore’s largest public healthcare cluster, and it uses Sunrise to connect healthcare teams across its network of acute and community hospitals, national specialty centres and polyclinics. This includes an electronic medical record (EMR) platform which clinicians can access for up-to-date medical records, and which eliminates the need for patients to repeat their medical histories during each consultation.
With a network of acute hospitals, national specialty centres, polyclinics and community hospitals offering over 40 clinical specialties, it delivers comprehensive, multi-disciplinary and integrated care. Beyond tertiary and specialist care, SingHealth partners community care providers to enable patients to receive the right care at their homes.
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