The Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for children has recently announced the deployment of a new communications and results reporting solution aimed at improving patient test ordering.
Hospital officials said the contract will provide its staff with the IMS MAXIMS Order Communications and Results solution for ordering pathology and radiology tests along with other requests.
“The IMS MAXIMS Web-based solution offers a number of advantages," said John Campbell, head of IT projects at GOSH. "From the clinician’s point of view, it allows them to easily link the results of pathology tests back to the original message. In many cases the reason for the test being requested is fundamental to the interpretation of the result, so this is a very real need.”
The current system for viewing radiology reports means that clinicians wanting to see results have to pull back images which takes time and may not be required, hospital official said. In future officials said their clinicians will be able to choose whether they need to see the images or not, which is expected to help save time.
The hospital's existing ordering system produces a paper request which then has to be re-input into the system. Officials said the new system will cut out duplicate data entry and improve data quality as information about patient tests only needs to be input once. This will help the hospital laboratories maximize their efficiency, GOSH officials said.
“The system will be used by around 2,000 healthcare professionals and user acceptance is very important. We liked the IMS MAXIMS solution because it is easy to use and because the company was prepared to work with us to develop the system to meet our specialist needs.”
IMS MAXIMUS execs said the Order Communications System was developed to be highly functional and allows orders to be placed for any registered patient. The results of tests and investigations are viewable as part of the patient record. Among the many advantages is its flexibility, allowing authorised users to access the system, through a secure portal, from any location. It also reduces the risk of incorrect or insufficient information being provided. There can be cost savings as the system helps reduce the number of inappropriate or unnecessary tests.
GOSH official expect the new system to be up and running sometime in 2010. Both GOSH and IMS MAXIMUS will be involved in discussions concerning further enhancements and expansions to the system.
