Regional Patient Administration Systems

What is the project doing?

The Northern, Midland, Central and Southern Regions are all developing Regional IT Implementation Plans to outline priorities and timelines for implementing a common regional platform to deliver on Phase 1 of the National Health IT Plan.

The District Health Board's will consolidate to a single instance of the Patient Administration System (PAS) for each region. A phased approach will be taken with DHB's on legacy systems implementing first. Two PAS products from iSOFT are supported; iPM and WebPAS. Homer, Oracare and Galen products are sunsetted and will need to be replaced.

There will be significant emphasis on business and clinical leadership as the DHB's work together to define the PAS processes and business rules within each region. Technical standards are being defined at a national level through the Sector Architects Group.

Why is it being done?

Currently all District Health Board's (DHB's) operate a variety of individual PAS, some of which are now obsolete and due for replacement.

PAS systems are relatively mature and proven within NZ but a regional PAS will allow for a consistent approach to the management of a patients encounter with hospital services, and the management of hospital and DHB services nationally.  This will lead to greater consistent data leading to more consistent reporting at a regional and national level.

Having a single instance of the PAS across each region will mean all the DHBs will be on the same version. This will reduce the cost and effort of upgrades for the DHBs and the vendors, and create economies of scale for smaller DHBs.

Integrating the PAS with local and regional clinical and business information systems will ensure that information, once captured, is accessible to other systems that require it.  PAS data standards are already well defined in many cases through compliance with national requirements for systems integration, such as with the national health index, the health practitioner index, and national reporting requirements.

What change will be noticed?

The consolidation of PAS systems at a regional level will mean common business processes and rules are followed within each region, and it will be easier to share information regionally and nationally.

Extracts to the National Collections will need to be modified to identify each transaction by both region and DHB.

Project Phase

Scope and Design

Project Milestone

Not known

Governance

Regional IT Governance Groups

Who is involved

Regional CIO Chairs: Northern, Midland, Central and Southern Regions

Contact Us:

If you have any feedback or questions please email the project team on enquiries@ithealthboard.health.nz with the name of the project and your comments. We will respond to you within 5 working days.