MN-CMS- Fully Integrated Electronic Health Record
The Maternal and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) Programme provides a single Electronic Health Record (EHR) for women and babies in maternity and gynaecology services in Ireland. It transformed healthcare delivered in CUMH, UHK, NMH and the Rotunda and is progressing to Phase II to incorporate the Coombe Woman and Infants University Hospital and University Maternity Hospital Limerick. Clinicians identified the need to digitise the national maternity record to enhance access to patient information, improve clinical documentation, patient safety and data driven care.
A detailed design specification was developed by clinicians in consultation with colleagues at all 19 maternity units. The public procurement process commenced in 2011 and concluded with contract signing and Programme initiation in 2014. The objective was to design and implement an EHR which would support the provision of safe, effective, and timely care for women and babies in Ireland by improving communication, legibility, and access to the chart by relevant providers of care as and when required. This was achieved working collaboratively with ICT and a 3rd party software provider.
Benefits
Return on investment for the HSE, patients and clinicians include qualitative and quantitative benefits, and the national standard facilitates scalability to all maternity services. The key benefits include:
- Improved patient care through better communication, supported decision making and effective planning of care.
- Effective and efficient recording of information reflecting best standards in documentation.
- Enhanced clinical audit and research with better quality data.
- Informed business intelligence for local and national management decisions.
- Quantitative savings through changes in work practices, use of resources and staff redeployment.
The Learning
- Projects do not end at Go-Live; funding must be provided to ensure the on-going support for project optimisation/development.
- Key to a successful EHR implementation is resourcing a project team to manage the full lifecycle process - this must include senior clinicians.
- Engage all clinical disciplines, administration, and 3rd party providers from the earliest possible time to ensure that all needs are considered at design and build stage.
- Training is a key priority, is on-going and must include training of senior clinicians.
Testimonials:
“The Maternal and Newborn Clinical Management System (MN-CMS) represents one of the most significant recent developments in healthcare in Ireland” Dr. Michael Robson, Clinical Director
“One of the major benefits of the MNCMS is standardisation of documentation for the care provided; it leads to improved care through clinical decision support such as the iMEWS and Sepsis alerts and the support of national guidance” Professor Richard Greene, CCIO.
“Internationally some of the key benefits of EHRs relate to improvements in medication safety - MN-CMS has demonstrated that” Professor Brian Cleary, Medication Lead.
“MN-CMS is a ‘pathfinder’ project, it is internationally unique, no other country has implemented a national shared maternity electronic health record with the same levels of integration” Dr. Brendan Murphy, Neonatology Lead.
Contact: Catherine Jinks, Programme Manager - catherine.jinks@hse.ie