The Australian Digital Health Agency is commencing a project to improve medicines, allergy and adverse reaction information within the My Health Record and connected clinical information systems as part of improving medication safety.
How can you help? What is involved?
The Agency would like to engage with clinicians working in various healthcare settings to understand how they use medicines related information particularly as part of patient transitions across care settings. This may include GPs, specialists, hospital pharmacists, community pharmacists, nurses, allied health professionals and aged care workers. Two types of involvement are requested:
- the chance to observe a clinician in their daily work (observations will take place over a 2-4 hour period); and/or
- a 60-75 minute interview in a clinician’s place of work.
Findings from the user research will inform improvements to the way medicines related information is collected, stored and displayed in the My Health Record system to better support clinicians in their work and contribute to patient outcomes.
The Agency has engaged a team of researchers who are experienced in working within clinical environments and are dedicated to ensuring patient safety and privacy is preserved throughout. Each site visit will be conducted by a small team consisting of an experienced user experience designer and a senior design analyst. More information on the protocol for this research is in the attached document – ‘Clinical User Engagement Research Protocol’.
When is it happening?
This research is planned to be undertaken in two phases. The first phase is to undertake exploratory research about key uses of medicines related information in providing patient care and opportunities for improvement. The second phase is to test early prototypes to see if they improve the clinical user experience of accessing and using medicines related information sourced from the My Health Record and connected systems.
Times available for observation and/or interviews:
- week commencing Monday 24th October 2016
- week commencing Monday 31st October 2016
- week commencing Monday 7th November 2016
- week commencing Monday 14th November 2016
- week commencing Monday 28th November 2016
- week commencing Monday 5th December 2016
- week commencing Monday 12th December 2016
- week commencing Monday 16th January 2017
- week commencing Monday 23rd January 2017
How to register interest in participating
If this sounds like a project that you or clinicians associated with your PHN might wish to participate in, and they are available for the timeframes above, please contact Jane.Trevillian@digitalhealth.gov.au (phone 02 6289 8970) or Lorraine.Anderson@digitalhealth.gov.au (phone 02 6289 6807) by Friday 21th October 2016 with:
- Name and title
- Healthcare provider type
- Work location/organisation
- Contact details (email and phone number)
- Availability for one or more of the weeks listed above (including any preferred days within the week)
The project team will then liaise with interested clinicians to confirm participation in the user research.