Treatment can represent the most important phase of a patient’s journey, so making the documentation side of it safer and easier can only prove to be beneficial. That’s what Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has been discovering since automating the perioperative documentation practices at one of its hospitals.

It was a necessary change, as patients at the HMC psychiatric hospital that were undergoing electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) were not able to get the optimal treatment via the previous methods. These included keeping paper records, which allowed a margin for error and wouldn’t permit data to be carried through into the aftercare unit. As a wider point, the data was siloed on the sheets of paper, which meant that trying to spot trends and patterns was impossible. 

After consulting focus groups, HMC worked with Cerner to develop new processes that automated the ECT perioperative process. As a result, nurses are now able to dedicate all of their time to caring for patients, rather than spending time transcribing therapy notes – this alone saves an average of 10 minutes per patient, equating to an extra 110 hours per year going back into patient care.

Additionally, it means that notes can follow patients through the continuum of care in real-time, giving caregivers the most up-to-date information so they can provide the most suitable care – vital in case of any post-operative complications that need to be dealt with swiftly.

The success of automating the perioperative process has encouraged HMC to look into improving other systems in similar ways. Not only that, but having digitized data means that it can be sorted and tracked to see what trends appear, and use these to inform any wider business and clinical decisions that may need to be made in the future.