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From left: CEO of the QEH Dr. Dexter James; Marci MacDonald, IFHIMA President; Terry Ell, Vice President of ISSRT; Ian Weithers, BAR President and Deneice Marshall, BHIMA President, engaging in discussion following the opening ceremony.

Hospital boost

Queen Elizabeth Hospital already seeing benefits from improvements

The Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) is currently embarking on a number of innovative strategies in an attempt to improve its healthcare delivery system.

This was revealed by the Chief Executive Officer of the QEH, Dr. Dexter James, as he delivered remarks at the opening ceremony of the Barbados Association of Radiographers and the Barbados Health Information Management Association’s Third Biennial Conference, which was held at the Radisson Aquatica Resort yesterday afternoon.

“At the QEH, we have made an investment to convert all paper-based patient medical records into a digital format. We refer to that as our Back File Project and it is an estimated cost of US $250 000 and this is currently taking place as we speak,” he said.

“What that will do for is bring all paper-based records into electronic format, therefore making access easier, so the benefits that we have from this approach is that patient records are now accessible in one location. So with the patient’s unique identifier, which would be the patient’s national ID, you can access the records in one location.”

James noted that the benefits did not end there. He explained that with this approach, because of their network with the polyclinics, they would also have access to the data at those locations.

“So records are accessible across the board, which creates an integration of records and therefore permits the easy movement of patients between the hospital and the polyclinics,” he said.

“The data is also available for policymakers so that data can be made for health policy planning. Also, with the proper credentials, patients can log in and access their own patient records.”

James went on to note that there was a widening gap between the demand for health resources and availability of resources, but hoped that through these innovative strategies, the gap would decrease. One other strategy that the QEH was looking to implement was a national health management system, under the rubric called MEDData, which was a national solution that sought to implement a number of modules across different sectors.

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