Resources

The transition from paper-based to electronic patient records (EPR) is critical in modernising healthcare systems. A recent study in Cureus explored how a UK hospital successfully adapted its existing software to create a cost-effective, clinician-friendly EPR system. The findings offer valuable insights for hospitals worldwide, including those in Australia and New Zealand, where digital transformation remains a priority. 

Healthcare has worked on reducing ‘Low-Value Care’ for several years now, with varying success. The significant negative impact of low-value care includes increased healthcare costs, patient harm, and resource wastage. These authors propose a framework to address the still pervasive issue of low-value care such as unnecessary tests, treatments, and procedures that offer little benefit to patients and may even cause harm.

This comprehensive human factors resource will be helpful for those explaining human factors issues in human services, or designing healthcare systems and environments to support safe care.

The public expects to receive care of the same quality whenever and wherever they receive it. Yet, research shows that care organisations do not function in the same way on each day of the week, or during the night compared with daytime hours. This ‘patterned organisation of time’, known as ‘temporal structuring’, has been explored in studies relating to seven-day-a-week services, with the ‘weekend effect’ impact on outcomes of those admitted on weekends, as one example.

This tool provides a ‘ready reckoner’ for boards wanting to test if they’re focused on the right things to support quality care.