Nursing homes to enjoy better integrated IT system

Project is pegged at $6.5 million.

Nursing home residents will enjoy better integrated care across their healthcare systems through a new programme aimed at boosting productivity and ensuring timelier flows of residents’ electronic health information between care institutions and nursing homes.

The Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) just announced the launch of the Nursing Home IT Enablement Programme (NHELP), which nursing homes can tap on to support them in improving patient care and boosting productivity.

In a media release, AIC indicates its plans to roll this out to 36 nursing homes by 2017, with nine nursing homes already committed to participate in NHELP. The Singapore Christian Home (SCH) will be the first nursing home to implement the NHELP IT system in February 2015.

Connected to AIC’s Integrated Referral Management System and the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR), the IT system will ensure timelier flows of residents’ electronic health information between different care institutions and participating nursing homes.

The NHELP IT system will also automate processes and documentation, boosting productivity and work efficiency. For example, nurses can retrieve residents’ records, instead of going through numerous paper records.

Executive Director of Singapore Christian Home Ms Yip Moh Han said, “ I have already identified several ways that the system can help us to remove tedious and repetitive tasks, provide greater accuracy in reporting, and to obtain real-time information on patient care. NHELP will help my care staff to work more efficiently, focus energies on providing quality care and thus achieve greater job satisfaction.”

Here’s more from AIC:

To implement NHELP, AIC is collaborating with T-Systems Singapore Pte Ltd and its partner Leecare Solutions, an Australian-based company that has been providing IT solutions to Australian nursing homes for the past 22 years.

The cost of implementing and customising the NHELP IT system to all 36 nursing homes is $6.5 million. Participating nursing homes will subscribe to NHELP IT system as a service.