Global Integration Blog

THE computer system that runs emergency departments in NSW hospitals is compromising patients' care, according to the first systematic review of the troubled project that found it was crippled by design flaws.

The FirstNet system allows treatment details and test results to be assigned inadvertently to the wrong patient, according to the review. It is based on a technical study of the software and interviews with directors of seven Sydney emergency departments.

The system is so compromised it should be scrapped, a specialist doctors' group said yesterday.

As reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, November 28, 2009

THE University of Sydney removed from its website an extremely critical essay about a new multimillion-dollar emergency department IT system after pressure from the NSW Health Department. .

Doctors, nurses and administrators at four area health services heavily criticised the system - which tracks patients - as posing an ''unacceptably high risk'' to patient safety because it was so slow, cumbersome and inefficient.

Some hospitals have boycotted Cerner FirstNet and reverted to paper to record clinical notes because it is too difficult and too time-consuming to retrieve critical patient information from the system, the essay said.