Communication from emergency departments (ED) to primary health clinicians is known to be an area of risk to continuity of quality patient care in the community.
The WA Statewide ED Discharge Summaries Working Group has been looking at solutions to address recognised issues with the aim of streamlining, standardising and improving the quality of discharge summaries from every ED in the state.
The Working Group comprises multidisciplinary representation across Perth metropolitan Health Service Providers (HSPs) and the WA Country Health Service.
In line with current inpatient discharge summaries, the Notifications and Clinical Summaries (NACS) application developed by WA Department of Health has been identified as the ideal platform for the transmission of discharge information from ED, with the benefit of secure messaging via email. Discharge summaries are also visible on My Health Record and will be compatible with the electronic medical record as the State moves towards a fully digitised health system.
A trial of NaCS-lite discharge summaries commences in the Fiona Stanley Hospital ED at the end of this month, with a staged roll out planned across all metro HSPs over the next 12-18 months. In preparation for this trial, general practices within the South Metro Health Service catchment may be contacted to update their requisite IT systems to support secure messaging of discharge summaries for their patients.
From April 2024, the WA Statewide ED Discharge Summaries Working Group will be seeking feedback from general practice on improvements in the timeliness and quality of the NACS-lite discharge information received for your patients and will be making direct contact with general practices to facilitate this.
This serves as an important quality improvement initiative which will support the continuity of quality patient care in the community and provide a more positive experience for patients and care providers across the state
Your local HSP champion will be in touch to update requisite IT systems, monitor progress and review your feedback as this quality improvement process is implemented.
For more information, contact South Metropolitan Health Service Manager Clinical Governance, Fleur Gilroy at fleur.gilroy@health.wa.gov.au