Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has recommended that “patients with non-urgent conditions" can visit their nearest Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) centre instead of the Emergency Department at the Hamad General Hospital.
HMC wants to avoid any delay during the introduction of the Clinical Information System (CIS) at the Hamad General Hospital.
Under the new system, patient records at the hospital will go digital and can be accessed electronically from any of the hospitals of HMC as well as the health centres of PHCC.
However, several patients who had visited the Emergency Department in the last few days had reported delays and some of them had to wait for long hours to get treatment. Several of them reported that the whole process at the centre was relatively slow.
Replying to a Gulf Times query on Monday, HMC stated that the new process needed more time than necessary for initial registration of the patients.
“Staff at Hamad General Hospital need to gather more information from patients in order to register them under the new system and this means that first appointments and initial visits to the Emergency Department take longer than usual,” informed an official from HMC corporation communication department.
“The Emergency Department’s triage system ensures we see the sickest patients first. Those with non-urgent conditions can visit their nearest Primary Health Care Corporation centre,” the official suggested.
The CIS project involves more than 1mn patient records. “These also include documents such as test results, discharge papers and medications. The Hamad General Hospital sees more than 1,000 patients each day and as this is a comprehensive, large-scale implementation in our busiest hospital; there is a period of transition for both the staff and patients.”
The CIS system enables clinicians and healthcare providers to access a patient’s healthcare history, prescription information, clinical notes and other important information electronically. It means clinicians can spend more time with each patient and less time on paperwork and it will also reduce errors in transcription.
HMC highlighted the co-operation of the patients in implementing the whole process of CIS. “The implementation of the system has gone to plan on account of the patients’ co-operation in arriving at appointments on time and bringing the necessary documentation needed for registration.”
The Hamad General Hospital implemented the state-of-the-art CIS from May 6. Its rollout follows the successful CIS implementation in seven HMC hospitals, Paediatric Emergency Centres, Dialysis Centres, Bone and Joint Centre and a number of PHCC health centres across the country.