Yao Tokushukai General Hospital to link its surgical management system with EMRs
Yao Tokushukai General Hospital in Osaka plans to connect its existing surgical management system, which supports safe and efficient surgery, with its EMR system around March. The aim is to transfer usage data for all materials used in surgery automatically into the EMR, further improving efficiency by eliminating data entry work for operating theatre staff.
Automating data entry for medical materials
The surgical management system manages inventories, records and accumulates material usage data, automatically places orders promptly according to usage, and helps staff pick the materials needed for each operation. It also makes it easy to calculate theatre utilisation, surgical costs, and forecast and actual financial results.
Operating theatre nurses have nevertheless had to enter used materials into the EMR manually, adding to their workload across many operations. Yoshiyuki Tani, Head of Anaesthesiology, who was responsible for the operating theatres when the hospital relocated in 2009, welcomes the integration: “Nurses will no longer need to enter the data again and can concentrate on nursing.” It will also improve administrative work such as insurance claims.
Digital picking, or DigiPick, is a component of the system that contributes to both safety and efficiency. Staff select an operation from a registered list on a dedicated tablet, and lights illuminate on the shelves containing the required materials, together with the quantities needed.
The hospital stocks about 1,000 types of material. Collecting them quickly and accurately by hand requires experience. Tani explains: “With digital picking, any missed item is immediately apparent. Even staff without extensive experience can quickly and accurately collect everything needed for surgery.”
Takanori Yakuwa, a senior operating theatre nurse, adds: “We will upgrade the system when we connect it to the EMR. This will make it easier to allocate staff according to the number and experience needed for each procedure.”
Since introducing and repeatedly improving the system, the hospital's surgical volume has risen steadily. The monthly average was about 250 operations in 2009, when the hospital relocated, 321 in 2010, 337 in 2011 and 375 in 2012 through November.
The hospital is also pursuing safety. Its network video recorder (NVR) system monitors all seven operating theatres in real time and retains a week's recordings. A 60-inch monitor in the anaesthesiology office displays theatre activity and patients' physiological data. “The surgical management and monitoring systems work together to make surgery safe and efficient. Both are indispensable,” Tani emphasises.
For further improvements, the hospital is considering gauze with IC tags to prevent retained surgical items, and RFID systems that identify the professions and numbers of people entering theatres and track high-value equipment. These could support surgical planning and more detailed cost calculations.
Source: Tokushukai Newspaper, 25 February 2013, No. 866