NewsDetail
Doha 2 August, 2015: Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) today announced the roll out of the Clinical Information System for The Cuban Hospital is due to take place on the weekend of 7 August 2015. During the go live, The Cuban Hospital will
replace their existing paper patient clinical records system with the new electronic Clinical Information System (CIS). This is part of a phased roll out across HMC and Primary Healthcare Corporation (PHCC). When it is complete, all patient records will be stored and accessible electronically across the two organizations.
Women’s Hospital, Al Wakra Hospital, the National Center for Cancer Care and Research, Heart Hospital and Al Khor Hospital, as well as a number of PHCC clinics have already rolled out the CIS system over the last 12 months with a positive impact. Clinicians at these facilities now have access to a single electronic health record of their patients at their fingertips whenever they need it.
The Clinical Information System is a comprehensive system-wide change that has been designed in collaboration with clinicians to ensure that patients receive the safest and most effective clinical care. Through the implementation of this system at The Cuban Hospital, clinicians and healthcare providers will be able to access a patient’s healthcare history, prescription information, clinical notes and other important information electronically. The system will change the way all staff work across HMC and PHCC, supporting us to integrate care across multiple provider sites.
As a result we expect there to be period of transition, while staff and patients adjust. The Cuban Hospital staff will need to gather more information from patients, in order to register them in the new system, which may mean that appointments will take a little longer than usual.
Mr. Philip Lowen, Chief Executive Office of The Cuban Hospital explained that his team have put a number of processes in place to ensure as smooth a patient experience as possible but asked that patients are patient during this transition period. “I want to reassure the public that all patients will be seen within a clinically appropriate timeframe, regardless of this system implementation. We will ensure the transition period is as smooth and as quick as possible and we look forward to the system being up and running. It is one of the strategic key programs for the organization and will ensure we can provide the safest, most effective healthcare to the population of Qatar. A patient’s data only has to be input into the system once and after that it is available to the whole care team. This means that ultimately healthcare professionals are able to focus more of their time on supporting the patient and less time on paperwork.”
The importance of an electronic medical records system was set out in the National Health Strategy for Qatar, launched in 2011. To address this new national strategy, Hamad Medical Corporation and Primary Health Care Corporation launched the Clinical Information System (CIS) program in 2012, which is one of the most ambitious and important programs for the organizations’ future.
