Pink envelopes smooth transition to hospital
23 July 2014
Transferring patient information between aged residential care providers and Palmerston North Hospital emergency
services and wards has been made easier with the implementation of a bright ‘pink envelope’ service.
While, in the future, information will be prepared electronically, a current solution was needed to perform this
function. The envelopes have been designed as an improvement initiative for clinical handover, and carry all of an
individual patient’s documentation, so that it can easily follow them as they move around the healthcare system.
MidCentral District Health Board (MDHB) Senior Portfolio Manager, Jo Smith, recently visited with many of the district’s
36 facilities to deliver the new ‘pink envelopes’ which are being funded by Ms Smith’s team.
She said: “The best thing about this initiative is the collaboration between hospital staff and the community sector to
solve an issue of how information follows a person into the system, around the system and home again while ensuring key
information is included or added to, as a person’s admission and discharge takes place.”
Having a bright ‘pink envelope’ that catches the eye of all involved in a person’s care has been the initiative of a
number of groups including a patient flow group at the hospital, the aged care providers themselves and the DHB.
“Collaboration and working together is something we see more and more of these days as constraints on services bring us
together to solve problems,” states Ms Smith.
MDHB sponsors four forums a year with the aged residential care providers as a way to engage clinicians and managers
across the district to work together on sector barriers. Issues with information related to admission and discharge were
considered a problem. These aged care forums are well attended and serve as case review sessions for circumstances that
may not have gone well or for getting involved in areas to make things work better.