Whanganui DHB has improved hospital handovers by implementing a mobile electronic task management solution for clinical
staff.
Medtasker went live at the DHB in January 2019 for Resident Medical Officers.
Chief medical officer Francois Rawlinson says the DHB was experiencing a number of pain points it wanted to address,
including the need to improve handover both between departments and shifts.
The electronic system reduces the risk of human error during handover as when a person logs in they can see the tasks
assigned to them and if they have been completed or not, says Rawlinson. Previously handover was done verbally or on
slips of paper which are easily lost.
Tasks can be assigned to teams so if someone is sick or leaves the organisation, others still know what needs to be
done. There is also an escalation function if tasks are not accepted or completed within certain timeframes.
Rawlinson says Medtasker provides secure communication of images, which were previously being sent via unsecure channels
such as What’s App, raising issues of privacy and confidentiality.
“We wanted a safe way to facilitate getting photographs into the clinical record to provide a pictorial record of what
people saw and acted upon,” he says.
Medtasker is integrated with the patient administration system, clinical portal and active directory.
Staff use a mixture of desktop computers and Apple and Android devices to access the system and can choose to use their
own smartphone or DHB device.
Rawlinson says the electronic system also helps RMOs attend their protected teaching time as previously they would be
getting paged during classes and having to leave to make a call.
“Teaching becomes disrupted or piecemeal so often they don’t turn up and that’s a significant issue,” he tells
eHealthNews.nz.
While the system has been rolled out to RMOs initially, Rawlinson says this will be expanded and nursing and allied
health staff will also benefit from it. Currently they can task RMOs, but cannot be tasked themselves.
ends