Author: Lauren Turner

New e-Referral form for Onsite Ultrasound

Posted on by Lauren Turner

Locally owned and operated Onsite Ultrasound has been providing high-quality ultrasound services for people in Hawke’s Bay for 14 years.

E-Referrals can now be made to Onsite Ultrasound using CareSelect.

Onsite Ultrasound practice manager Kelly Fraser says the new tailor-made e-Referral form will help make the pathway easier for doctors to refer patients.

“The e-Referral form is quick and easy to use, saves time and is way more secure compared to faxing, emailing, phoning or handing a patient a paper referral,” she says.

“E-Referrals are definitely the way forward.”

Onsite Ultrasound has a team of 10 people and operates out of two sites – one in Napier and one in Hastings.

“We provide high-quality ultrasound services using the latest technology and equipment,” Kelly says.

Services on offer include pregnancy, general abdominal, small parts, pelvic, vascular, obstetric and musculoskeletal scans. Ultrasound-guided cortisone injections are also available.

Kelly says customer service is a big focus for the small, friendly team.

“Our team provides high-quality imaging alongside great customer service with friendly faces every step of the way.”

Urgent reports available

Kelly says urgent reports are available within the hour if required.

“Our general wait times for scans is minimal and we also put aside appointments every day for urgent cases should they arise,” she says.

“We also get our reports out as soon as possible after a scan has been completed.”

Free ACC scans are also available for patients who qualify (a surcharge applies for radiologist procedures).

“We’ve had lots of positive feedback over the years and pride ourselves on the high-quality service we provide and our friendly team.”

How to refer to Onsite Ultrasound:

  • open the patient record

  • select the HealthLink icon

  • use the CareSelect search bar, type “Onsite Ultrasound”

  • click “Compose Referral”.


Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust implements new Emergency Whiteboard

Posted on by Lauren Turner

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has implemented a brand-new process for patients arriving in the emergency department using a new electronic scheduling whiteboard.

The scheme, implemented in early July, sees patients arriving in the emergency department added to the Whiteboard immediately by emergency coordinators.  The team can then add patients to appropriate theatre slots as needed, make quick scheduling changes and retain complete oversight of patient location, treatment status, CEPOD status and extra quality improvement goals known as CQUINs.

The Emergency Whiteboard, from Bluespier, is also fully integrated with the Trust’s EPR, Careflow.  After patients are scheduled via the drag and drop functionality into the appropriate theatre slot on the Whiteboard, the central patient record housed in Careflow links automatically with the event, ensuring one accurate patient care record without the need to duplicate information.

Once scheduled for surgery, patients remain on the Whiteboard until staff make the decision to officially discharge, ensuring patients remain visible to care teams throughout their entire episode of care and staff have a true visual of the current resources of the emergency department.

Ben Jolly, Clinical Lead in Theatres at Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust: “The Bluespier Emergency Whiteboard has helped improve the organisation of patients booked onto the emergency theatre list. It allows us to plan patient care better and improve the care and experience that our patients receive. 

Stuart van Rooyen, Managing Director at Bluespier, said: “This has been an excellently executed project thanks to the talent and diligence of the Trust staff, Bluespier and System C representatives.  The majority of the implementation was managed remotely due to current restrictions but the excellent communication between teams ensured this went live without a hitch.”

“We understand the pressures that hospitals are under and are very proud that our solutions can help improve efficiency and ultimately patient care within high pressure environments.”

After just one month’s use, 203 patients have successfully been admitted via the Emergency Whiteboard.

Save Hours Each Month With Trusted Dosages

Posted on by Lauren Turner

Your team could save hours each month with our new Trusted Dosages feature!

 

What is Trusted Dosages?

You may remember that we introduced this new feature in our August release. This new feature allows RxWeb to convert many of the common GP text Strings to a Trusted Dosage mapping.

For Example, in 3 months across our environment, the downloaded GP Dosage of ‘1 nocte’ occurred 30931 times.

This would usually be changed to ‘ONE to be Taken at NIGHT’. Further analysis showed hundreds of variants of codes that essentially meant the same thing e.g. take one daily, One To Be Taken Each Day, 1 TABLET ONCE A DAY, take one once daily, TAKE ONE DAILY, ONE TO BE TAKEN DAILY, 1 OD, One To Be Taken Daily, 1 TABLET ONCE DAILY occurred 855420 times.

All of these are essentially ‘ONE to be Taken DAILY’.

RxWeb has had a pharmacist prepare a system mapping table of the commonly seen dosages strings to a clear and consistent instruction. This is also something you can manage yourself if you choose to. If you don’t think our mappings fit your requirements you can create your own.

 

The Impact

Since its launch back in August, Trusted Dosages has had a major impact on the customers using it, helping them to save hours each month whilst improving the clinical safety of manually entering dosage syntax. We have estimated that on average, a successfully mapped item saves a pharmacist about 3 seconds in checks and changes.

Although feedback from users would suggest that this is a very conservative estimate with many saying that they are probably saving 4-5 seconds per item.

So how do those saved seconds translate? Well, in the below table we have outlined exactly how many seconds, minutes, and hours we’ve saved Trusted Dosage users in the past month.

Trusted Dosages has saved our customers over 1,246 hours of work in the first month of use. This equates to a saving of almost 3 hours per site, per month. And it’s worth noting that these numbers are set to increase substantially as we have now increased the number of Trusted Dosage mappings from 300 to over 1000.

 

How to enable Trusted Dosages on your system

Trusted Dosage can be switched on in system configurations. From the menu at the top of your screen go to System/System Configuration and select the options shown under Categories and Sub Categories. Highlight the line ‘Use Trusted Dosage Conversion’ and change the value at the bottom to ‘Yes’ and then press ‘Update’.

If you wish to learn more about creating your own mappings we have created a guide which you can find in our release notes below.

Full details about the Trusted Dosages functionality can be found in the ‘Release S Detailed Overview’ notes here.

 

Victoria SmartForms statewide rollout – Northern Health

Posted on by Lauren Turner

Background: In 2016, the journey to e-Referrals began with the National Digital Health Strategy. Now, five years later, Victoria has successfully rolled out e-Referrals statewide. We caught up with some of the PHNs who have been behind the rollout to reflect on the journey that has brought them to this successful outcome.

 

Bonnie Ferguson

Project Lead | Northern Health

 

When and why did Northern Health introduce GP e-Referrals?

Northern Health implemented e-Referrals in 2017, initially as a pilot project. That was then integrated into standard process, however, GP uptake was slow. In 2020 Northern Health observed a significant increase in GP utilisation of e-Referrals in response to a dedicated project to “Axe the Fax”, initiated with the aim to reduce clinical risk due to fax error and lost paper referrals.

How has HealthLink’s SmartForms technology supported GP e-Referral?

Northern Health has implemented seven HealthLink SmartForms, which have assisted to improve the quality of referrals received with the inclusion of statewide referral criteria and information that needs to be included to support the referral.

Have there been any noticeable improvements to the patient referral transfer process from GPs to Northern Health since HealthLink was introduced?

Yes, there have been significant improvements to the referral transfer process since HealthLink e-Referrals were introduced, including:

  • More timely registration of patients as transmission includes coded data of patient profile and GP profile, reducing manual data entry points.

  • Greater referral security.

  • Higher reliability of complete transmission of clinical content.

  • Improved legibility as documents are received in digital format.

  • Acknowledgement of successful transmission.

  • HL7 messaging enabling tracking of referrals.

  • Reduced time from referral to first appointment.

How have GPs across Melbourne and your referrer catchment adopted this solution?

GP adoption of e-Referrals has been the key strategy towards mitigation of risk due to fax error. Identification of GP clinics as the source of fax errors enabled rapid response and interventions that provided targeted support and education to GPs in how to access and use HealthLink e-Referrals.

What is the greatest benefit GPs have received by using the new e-Referrals?

A more streamlined, easy-to-use process for GP referrers as the electronic referral feature is integrated into GP clinical software used by over 80% of general practices in the NH catchment.

Increased transparency for referrer and Specialist Clinic as referrals can be tracked more easily with referral date stamps and locations within the workflow (i.e. reduced loss of referral at the Specialist Clinic end)

Are you making specific improvements to your GP e-Referrals? Why, what are your goals?

The future goals of Northern Health are to improve communication to GPs and the quality of referrals received. This could be achieved by;

  • The further development of SmartForms for all specialities where statewide referral criteria is available.

  • The development of SmartForms for referral by GPs to diagnostic clinics.

  • Exploring the capability of return communication to GPs via HealthLink.

For those GP practices who do not have compatible clinical software that support HealthLink e-Referrals (approximately 20% of referring GPs), a future goal would be to provide education and support in the use of HealthLink’s web-based portal, which will allow referrers to complete a referral form securely online and attach necessary reports and results.

Based on your current experience, would you ever go back to life before GP e-Referrals?

No way, never!!

 

 

To start using GP e-Referrals, check out our HealthLink SmartForm user guides for:

  • Best Practice

  • Genie Solutions

  • Medical Director 3.16 and Above


Victoria SmartForms statewide rollout – Eastern Melbourne PHN

Posted on by Lauren Turner

Background: In 2016, the journey to e-Referrals began with the National Digital Health Strategy. Now, five years later, Victoria has successfully rolled out e-Referrals statewide. We caught up with some of the PHNs who have been behind the rollout to reflect on the journey that has brought them to this successful outcome.

Kirsty McDougall

Lead – Digital Health | Eastern Melbourne PHN

 

When and why did Eastern Melbourne PHN introduce GP e-Referrals?

Since 2017, Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network (EMPHN) collaborated with three major health services (Eastern Health, Austin Health, Northern Health) and in October 2020, Monash Health, to develop and roll out the integrated HealthPathways Melbourne/e-Referral solution across more than 350 general practices in the region. This solution allows GPs to send e-Referrals that are auto populated from their clinical information system, creating a more seamless experience for patients.  Within the e-Referral template, GPs can access the relevant referral pathway on HealthPathways Melbourne for guidance on referral criteria, and any relevant tests that need to be included with the referral.

The team has been supporting general practices using Medical Director, Best Practice, Genie and Medtech Evolution to adopt HealthLink SmartForms in sending referrals to Health Services and in addition, MyAged Care and promoting the SR Specialists functionality too.

EMPHN has ambitious targets for the future to see the cessation of the fax machine and transition to 100% e-Referrals.

How has HealthLink’s SmartForms technology supported the GP referral?

Knowing the referral has reached the door of the Health Service is one of the ways technology is supporting GPs. With fax, the GP can’t be confident that it has been successfully received, or pages missing and/or poor quality which is difficult to read at the Health service end.

We didn’t incentivise the general practices to come on board with SmartForms.  This was general practice wanting to change to a different way of sending referrals – reducing time to generate a referral at the GP end and having the SmartForm templates that contain referral information and all the data that is required to have a good e-Referral and pulled out of the clinical software.

Other feedback that we have received from general practices includes how easy it is to complete the forms and not having to print and fax the referral form.  Additionally, the GP will receive immediate acknowledgement of receipt of the e-Referral and it is instantly saved in the patient medical record, something the old fax machine simply can’t do.

How have GPs across Melbourne and your referrer catchment adopted this solution?

Awareness, support and training has been the key. In 2017, we ran an awareness campaign through an ‘Expression of Interest’.

And 4 years later, e-Referral is one of our key priorities in the toolbox of digital programs we provide and support to our general practices.

HealthLink provides excellent customer support and assists general practices to troubleshoot issues including registration and onboarding.

What is the great benefit GPs have received by using the new SmartForm e-Referral?

Positive feedback from general practice has been around the speed, certainty and accuracy and there is no cost to the GP.

Our role has been to support the change management and manage expectations that adapting to new technology takes time. Additionally, we have to consider the variability of IT skills of GPs and willingness to upgrade to the conformant version of their clinical software, and then there are those GPs moving from paper patient files to electronic patient records.

The e-Referral templates developed align with the Statewide Referral Criteria for Specialist Clinics. Inclusion of the criteria, along with a direct link to HealthPathways Melbourne, will help ensure the hospitals receive appropriate referrals, with the required information included, to avoid delays with the referral.

Based on your current experience, would you ever go back to life before GP e-Referrals?

No, it has been exciting and rewarding to see the monthly increase of e-Referrals into Health Services and we look forward to the expansion of more Health Services receiving e-Referrals.

Whilst GP change management is taking time, there is a lot of work being done to make it a better experience for both GPs and Health Services.

The message is loud and clear: Stop using fax to send referrals and embrace e-Referrals.

 

 

To start using GP e-Referrals, check out our HealthLink SmartForm user guides for:

  • Best Practice

  • Genie Solutions

  • Medical Director 3.16 and Above


System Release – New Medicine Service (NMS)

Posted on by Lauren Turner

We have updated the system! As some of you may be aware, one of the outcomes for Year 3 of the Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework is an expansion of the New Medicine Service (NMS).

To support our customers, RxWeb has been updated this week so that any newly prescribed medicines dispensed under one of the thirteen new categories and that are listed on the published NMS Drug Lists ( New Medicine Service (NMS) – Drug Lists | NHSBSA ), will be flagged to the user during the dispensing process, subject to you having NMS switched on in your system configuration.

NMS Expansion categories:

  • Acute coronary syndrome (ACS);

  • Atrial fibrillation (AF);

  • Coronary heart disease;

  • Epilepsy;

  • Glaucoma;

  • Gout;

  • Heart failure;

  • Hypercholesterolaemia ;

  • Long term risks of venous thromboembolism/embolism;

  • Osteoporosis;

  • Parkinson’s Disease;

  • Stroke / transient ischemic attack; and

  • Urinary incontinence and retention.

Please note that the current NMS eligible conditions/medicines will also continue as before, but the antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy group is now included in the above list by reference to the underlying condition/reason for prescribing.

Introducing Our New Community Page

Posted on by Lauren Turner

We are delighted to share with you our new Community Page. We’ve built this page to be a hub of information for our customers. You can keep up to date with upcoming events and webinars, expand your skillset with our lunch and learn library, and have your say on where our system goes next with our community suggestion box.

RxWeb is constantly evolving and improving which means there’s always something new to learn. We hope this page helps you and your team take full advantage of your system.

 

Upcoming Events and Webinars

Keep up to date with upcoming events and webinars that RxWeb will be attending or hosting. We regularly host Lunch & Learn webinars for our customers. These sessions have been hugely popular as we run through important topics and share useful tips and tricks. If you are looking to register for a webinar or are just curious about what’s in the calendar you’ll find the relevant info on the community page.

We also exhibit at a number of trade shows throughout the year. We love catching up with our customers. We hope to see some of you at The Pharmacy Show in October!

 

Lunch & Learn

If you ever miss one of our before-mentioned Lunch & Learn webinars, fear not! We always record our sessions and upload them to our community page. You can scroll back through the whole series up until now covering topics like ordering within RxWeb, EPS reporting and SMS messages.

 

Suggestion Box

We’ve also included a suggestion box! Our customers are at the heart of everything we do at RxWeb. Every new feature and updated piece of functionality we add to the system has been heavily influenced by the conversations and feedback we receive from our loyal customers.

Our customers help drive innovation and improvements in RxWeb and our hope is that this suggestion box will give you another channel to voice your opinion and share your ideas.

 

RxWeb Refer a Friend

And finally, we have launched our very own Refer-a-Friend program for RxWeb! This new program will reward current customers with 6 months FREE when they refer a friend who signs up with RxWeb. And that’s not all, your friend will also receive 6 months free as part of the program.

Why are we introducing this program now? Well firstly, we want to reward you, our customers who have trusted RxWeb to be the foundation of your Pharmacy. We often run promotional campaigns for new pharmacies but a referral program like this will give us an opportunity to reward our loyal customers too.

And that’s it… for now. Let us know what you think of the page and let us know if you would like anything else included there. We would love to hear your thoughts!

 

 

CASE STUDY: The Valley Pharmacy

Posted on by Lauren Turner
The Valley Pharmacy is situated in Holmfirth, Huddersfield. It is owned and operated by Mr. Tausif Hameed. Mr. Hameed and his team have been using RxWeb since 2016 and in this case study, he shares his experiences of using the system and what it has meant for his business.

 

MAKING THE SWITCH

After choosing RxWeb back in 2016, not only has Mr. Hameed been successful in cutting costs, but he quickly discovered that RxWeb could offer his pharmacy and business much more than his previous PMR providers.

“We use RxWeb in 2 of our branches. One is a 40-hour pharmacy-based here on Holmfirth Road and the other is an online pharmacy. When we decided we were going to make a change the biggest things for us was cost and ease of use. We still wanted a system that had the functionality, but we felt we could get a better deal,” explains Mr. Hameed. “The onboarding process was very simple. We were up and running very quickly and it didn’t take long for us to see the positives of the web-based system.”

“I was hesitant to change my PMR system at first as I didn’t particularly want to learn a new PMR system or have the disruption within my pharmacy. But I can honestly say the switch over to RxWeb was so incredibly easy. I wanted to increase my PCs from 2 to 4 and I thought I would have to buy all new hardware and have new network cables installed for the extra PC’s, but this was not the case. I was able to use my old hardware and simply buy 2 new PC’s which I could connect via Wi-Fi, so it was really easy with very little disruption to my Pharmacy. RxWeb installed their software onto my PC’s, transferring my old data across which I could repeat from and then Maggie the trainer spent a full day with my pharmacy team showing us how to use the system. We basically started on RxWeb exactly where we left off on our old PMR System.”

 

GROWING WITH RXWEB

“Since joining RxWeb I opened a new Online Pharmacy. This venture required a substantial investment of time and resources to set up and at a time where I was extremely busy. RxWeb helped me to retain full control over my 40-hour pharmacy.”

RxWeb Provides full remote access to the business so that staff can work from anywhere at any time. Whether you have one branch or 20, you can log into any location from a simple dropdown menu.

“While I was building the online pharmacy, I could keep control over day-to-day activities at The Valley Pharmacy and vice versa, all without having to be on the actual premises so it was extremely flexible for my business needs. Then, when Covid hit and I had to work from home during an isolation period, my business continuity was not affected, and I could carry on with my duties from home which was crucial for my business.”

“We definitely have more freedom to work in the ways that make sense for us. We have also grown with RxWeb onto their new HTML5 platform.”

Download the case study yourself, as Mr. Hameed continues to describe his experiences with the system, support, training, pricing, and development.

Download Case Study Here

 

Triton Hearing opens ground-breaking new store

Posted on by Lauren Turner

Triton Hearing’s new ground-breaking store in the Auckland suburb of Newmarket is the first of its kind to open in the Southern Hemisphere.

Triton World of Hearing offers a completely new interactive experience when it comes to hearing checks and high-tech solutions.

E-Referrals can now be made to Triton World of Hearing using HealthLink’s CareSelect service.

Visitors to the new store use interactive screens to learn about the latest innovations in hearing technology. A team of expert audiologists is also on hand to help and offer advice.

The store, which opened in February, compliments Triton Hearing’s existing clinics around New Zealand, including its nine across Auckland.

Triton Hearing’s Audiology and Innovation Head Craig Lett says the new store offers a “surround sound experience” for people looking for solutions to hearing difficulties.

Many Kiwis are reluctant to seek help for hearing difficulties because they worry about being thought of as “old”.

“It’s very much a hidden health issue. Almost 900,000 Kiwis, or about one in six, suffer from hearing difficulties and many people put off seeking help because of the stigma associated with hearing loss,” Craig says.

Hearing loss can impact wellbeing

Craig says even mild cases of hearing loss can significantly affect a person’s health and wellbeing.

“People who struggle to hear can become socially isolated. They often don’t interact with others as much as they used to and, for some, this can lead to depression.”

Research shows that on average people wait seven years to seek help for hearing issues.

“Loud noise and age are the most common factors leading to hearing difficulty, but most people even in their twenties are no longer able to hear high frequency sounds.”

As well as the stigma associated with hearing loss, Craig says cost and accessibility to care are also barriers to seeking help.

“For people who worry about being seen as old, we have totally invisible hearing aid options which can connect to phones and live stream music.

“For those concerned about cost, we offer a ‘Pay as you Hear’ subscription service across all levels of technology which customers can pay in monthly instalments.”

How to refer to Triton World of Hearing:

  • open the patient record

  • select the HealthLink icon

  • use the CareSelect search bar, type “Triton Hearing”

  • click “Compose Referral”.


Bowel Cancer NZ launches brand new e-Referral form

Posted on by Lauren Turner

Bowel Cancer NZ

E-Referrals to Bowel Cancer New Zealand can now be made using CareSelect.

Referrals were previously sent via email, phone or Bowel Cancer New Zealand’s website.

Bowel cancer is the second highest cause of cancer death in New Zealand and kills as many people as breast and prostate cancer combined. And we have one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world.

Bowel Cancer New Zealand nurse support co-ordinator and registered nurse Victoria Thompson says that while these statistics are sobering, there is hope.

“Bowel cancer is treatable and beatable if it’s detected early enough,” she says.

“The more people affected by bowel cancer that we can support, the better. The new e-Referral form will make it easier for patients to be referred to us so they can get the support they need.”

Variety of support available

Bowel Cancer New Zealand provides support for people living with bowel cancer and those recovering from treatment, as well as their whānau.

“We offer funded support in the form of free rehabilitative physiotherapy and counselling sessions, as well as support services, resources and patient and whānau support groups.”

Victoria is also available to answer non-urgent inquiries via the website, the 0800 BCNZ NURSE phone number or email, Monday to Thursday from 10am-4pm.

Bowel cancer affects any age group

Victoria says bowel cancer can affect anyone at any age.

“Bowel cancer is not just something elderly people can develop. It also affects a lot of young people too. Around 30 Kiwis aged 50 or under are diagnosed with bowel cancer each month.”

She says it’s crucial that people are aware of the symptoms of bowel cancer, which may include:

  • rectal bleeding

  • change of bowel motions/habits that come and go over several weeks

  • anaemia

  • severe persistent or periodic abdominal pain

  • a lump or mass in the abdomen

  • tiredness and loss of weight for no obvious reason.

Bowel Cancer New Zealand’s Never Too Young campaign runs through the month of August and highlights the fact that bowel cancer affects young people too, she says.

“If a young person presents with bowel cancer symptoms, it shouldn’t be dismissed because of their age. It should be investigated further.”

How to refer to Bowel Cancer New Zealand:

  • open the patient record

  • select the HealthLink icon

  • use the CareSelect search bar, type “Bowel Cancer New Zealand”

  • click “Compose Referral”.