Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin

About the Organisation

Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) at Crumlin (previously known as Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin) is the largest CHI hospital in Ireland.

Vision

CHI’s vision is healthier children and young people throughout Ireland.

Mission

CHI’s mission is to promote and provide child centred, research led and learning informed healthcare, to the highest standards of safety and excellence, in partnership with each other, with children, young people and their families through a network of children’s services in Ireland.

In 2018 CHI at Crumlin had 38,159 emergency attendances, 20,046 day cases, 10,739 in patient admissions, 77,429 outpatient attendances and 21,396 surgical procedures performed.

Introduction

We recently met with staff including Rena Mongey, Head of Medical Records at CHI at Crumlin to discuss the progress the hospital has made since using the G2 Speech system and how this enhances patient care.

Background

CHI at Crumlin has been using G2 Speech’s software since 2015. The hospital is using the workflow solution SpeechReport, to modernise its reporting methods.

The Digital Dictation & Speech Recognition Project integrated with the hospital Patient Administration System was awarded to G2 Speech, after successfully completing the tender process in 2014. CHI at Crumlin was looking to replace their dictation system which was an outdated analogue system. There was a need for efficient turnaround of transcripts to provide patients and physicians with fast, quality results. The objective of implementing SpeechReport was to support the development and implementation of more efficient work flow initiatives within the hospital, to assist in communicating move efficiently with patients and their healthcare providers.

SpeechReport was rolled out to four specialities in 2015/6 and the hospital then employed a Project Manager, to continue to roll out the system to the rest of the hospital.

Currently CHI at Crumlin has rolled the technology out to 25 specialties which include: Respiratory, Surgical, Plastics, The Sleep Department, Dermatology, ENT, Neonatology, The Emergency Department, Ophthalmology, General Paediatrics, Rheumatology, Orthopaedics, ID and Immunology, Allergy, Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Diabetic and Endocrine, Nephrology, EEG, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, Dental, Oncology, Haematology, GI and Psychology. The hospital has 250 licences in use.

Implementation

The Project Manager is located onsite in CHI at Crumlin and is tasked with managing the rollout to the remainder specialities at Crumlin. The Manager meets with each department individually to understand their structure, setting each department up on the system, and training all users on SpeechReport. Approximately three departments were scheduled per month to go live on SpeechReport. The Project Manager is the main contact with G2 Speech for all queries.

Project Manager, Antoinette emphasises the importance of educating users of the system:

“The training provided by G2 Speech is of a very good standard, clear and detailed with helpful user guides provided. Onsite training is crucial for the initial users. Training one to one on an individual machine with the user accessing their own programmes has worked best. She (the trainer) was also available for further questions regarding the use of the solution. Floor walking after the departments go-live is essential to ensure all users are using the system successfully.”

More than 158,091 documents have been created since working with G2 Speech.

Functionalities

At CHI at Crumlin, SpeechReport supports easy document creation and streamlines the clinical correspondence. Rena explains how the SpeechReport functionalities are taking clinical reporting to a higher level.

“These functionalities improve the user’s workflow even further. The functions developed with our input offer secretaries the ability to distribute letters to multiple addressees, such as the patient, GP, referrer or next of kin. Management of the clinical correspondence from one location saves a lot of time and decreases the risk of sending the correspondence to the wrong contact.”

Rena continues “CHI at Crumlin was one of the first hospitals in Ireland to implement SpeechReport. After the roll out we brought forward some suggestions for changes to help improve the solution, which were indeed carried out. Overall, the users found the system very user friendly.”

“Also the availability of the patient history in SpeechReport is a benefit to our multidisciplinary medical teams.
They now have the history of a patient available for reference online while dictating, avoiding the time consuming search through a patient chart to obtain previous correspondence. Having these letters available is particularly useful for patients with complex healthcare needs and extensive dossiers.”

Another function that makes the document creation process much more efficient is the ability to use templates and auto texts.

“We are able to create templates in-house. Each department has its own template and these are automatically linked to the user. When processing the dictation, the secretary can insert auto texts to populate the reports. This saves the secretaries a significant amount of time.”

Benefits
For CHI at Crumlin, the SpeechReport user interface offers clear insight into the type, urgency and length of the dictations which allows easy work scheduling and which has enabled the administrative staff to be more efficient with their letter transcription processes. By improving the workflow of the secretaries, the hospital has noted that efficiency in the various departments has significantly improved and the turnaround times of documents have reduced.

For the multidisciplinary medical teams, the workflow management solution and structure has led to greater efficiency as turnaround of documentation is quicker, questions are fewer which allows them to be more clinically productive. This ultimately frees up the skilled multidisciplinary medical teams to spend more time with patients.

“With the weekly reports on user performance, back logs and turnaround times of documents, we can monitor the workload and easily keep track of the results”.

User Quotes

Medical Teams

“The SpeechReport system has greatly improved the efficiency of workflow around report-writing, allowing timely reports to be sent to local services, and also allowing easy tracking of reports and ensuring reports are not ‘lost’ on faulty recording devices or accidentally overwritten. This has saved a lot of time in responding to telephone queries from local services as reports are reaching services sooner, meaning that the child can start appropriate intervention without having to wait long periods for reports to arrive.” Christina Cotter, Senior Speech & Language Therapist

Secretarial/ Administrative

“Great system of templates designed to purpose, time-saving with ready populated patient/doctor details enabling fast, accurate typing.” Elizabeth Dooley, Medical Secretary

“The system is so secure, as in files cannot be deleted or lost, and the fact that we are able to prioritise urgent work.” Patricia Duff, Medical Secretary

Children’s Health Ireland Case Study