Getting to the Right Patient at the Right Time: An Interoperable Mobile App to Track the ED Journey in Hospital

Abstract

The current legacy ICT framework structures in healthcare are often siloed and do not allow information to flow easily between business analytics and clinical systems, affecting critical decision making.Western Sydney Local Health District (WSLHD) has numerous electronic database systems for business analytics including tracking individual patients waiting for treatment in the emergency department (ED). Administrators of hospital business data report ED performance measures in a weekly static feedback report to clinical and executive staff due to current legacy systems and manual resource allocation processes. The remit of the project was to prototype a system that could integrate data sources from the current QlikSense Dashboard into an interoperable mobile app with the future intention of direct impact on clinical care decision making for the emergency department. A series of meetings between business analytics unit and clinical staff were used to inform a set of requirements for information workflow systems integration to be used on the project. Stimulated patient data that matched typical data feeds from the system was used to develop a prototype interoperable HL7 messaging mobile app that would report waiting patients in their triage categories in near real time. This working protype with synthetic scenarios and data will inform a future deployable production system with information for the patient journey from the ED waiting room into available hospital beds. As most applications are either designed for business analytics or clinical workflows, integrating information data sources into one mobile application that could meet the needs of both clinical and business performance was novel and integral. This proof of concept project successfully integrated the information systems necessary for both purposes and informs future requirements for an interoperable and deployable cross-platform mobile app.