Emergency Department Patient Management System

Patient Management System (PMS) for Emergency Department Patients at Modbury Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia; is an electronic ER whiteboard relational database written in FileMaker Pro. Triage layout current patients list displays patient names, colour coded Triage Status and bed or seat allocation, click select current patient to display editable patient details, Alerts, and location. The location matrix displays complete Emergency Department location allocation, occupancy and history.

As an Emergency Department Information System it has been designed, built and refined with close consultation with Emergency Department senior medical and nursing staff feedback. Enhancements and requests have been rapidly incorporated, so that the information the emergency department staff need to run a busy ER, is immediately available, and more importantly displayed in a way that is most sensible to the ER staff who are using it all day every day.

The layouts are 1660x960 px and designed to fill a 22 inch display. Large display design allows the data to be easily read from a distance of one to two meters, and enables small groups to review and discuss patients standing around the screen. An example full size image of the Emergency Department PMS database Triage Layout.

PMS - Triage Layout functions

A dedicated data entry and review layout for the Triage Nurse's station. Provides rapid patient entry, Triage Priority assignment, Rapid Assessment Team assignment, bed and seat location allocation, patient status warning flags, and the occupancy profile of the entire emergency department, plus total patient count and limit flags.

Emergency Department Patient management System Triage database screen
  • Create new patient, date-time stamped, auto flag alerts from prior attendance's
  • Create new patient as quick entry unknown male/female
  • Triage Priority assignment colour coded
  • Triage Nurse presentation assessment
  • Rapid assessment status allocation and response time tracking
  • Location allocation (bed, seat, external) with full location profile and occupancy (location group, specific location, name, priority, ) and easy click and confirm transfers, with time-stamped patient location history.
  • List of all current patients (name, triage priority, location), click selectable to display editable patient profile
  • "Did Not Wait" rapid discharge for those who don't
  • Colour flags for mandatory data
  • Alert flags for antibodies MSRA, HepB, HepC, HIV
  • Alert flags for presentation history; last attendance <48 hr, frequent attendance, inpatient < 24 hrs
  • Alerts flags for At Home, neonate, paediatric, and for >24 hours stay
  • Total current patient count display, with coloured alert banner flags for limits

PMS - Patient Layout functions

The Patient layout provides detailed data entry for doctor and nurse assignments, referrals, tests, diagnosis, and discharge.

Emergency Department Patient management System Triage database screen
  • Guidelines rapid help for common procedures
  • Assignment of Emergency Department Medical officers, and Nursing staff on patient by patient basis, with time-stamped changeover and history, free text notes entry...
  • Rapid multi-parameter status profiling (by ambulance, registrar notified...) for the common issues
  • Investigations (Biochemical, Radiology) requests, status, time ordered, request form printing
  • Referrals to other departments with time stamped request and response tracking, and responsible Registrar allocation, with
  • Discharge with commenting
  • Emergency Department Patient discharge letter generation
  • Simple medical diagnosis assignment, with WHO classification cross referenced diagnoses.

PMS - Whiteboard layout functions

List of all current Emergency Department patients with locations( bed allocations, seats...), admission status, triage priority date and time, provisional assessment, referrals summary

emergency department pms whiteboard

PMS - Medical Officer layout functions

This layout provides a quick review of both Emergency Department Medical Officer patient responsibilities, and Referral Departments (Discharge Liaison, ENT Gynaecology, Medicine, Orthopaedics, Paediatrics, Psychiatry, Surgery) patient responsibilities . Each Referral Department has a count of unseen referrals, and selecting a department lists respective department doctors, and patients with referrals to the department, with patient triage priority, bed location, names, referred time, elapsed tome since being referred and provisional assessment.

A list of all Emergency Department patients waiting for admission to a hospital ward are listed, with time expired since allocated for admission, the pending ward, Access Block time, and medical diagnosis.

emergency-department-pms-mo-650
  • Select Emergency Department Medical Officer and display the selected MO patient responsibilities ( with bed locations, triage priorities and provisional assessments)
  • Select Referral Department and display the selected Referral Dept. patient responsibilities ( with bed locations, triage priorities and provisional assessments, referral request time and elapsed time), and current doctors.
  • Pending Admissions list

PMS - Emergency Department Doctors and Nursing staff Admin layout functions

Medical and Nursing Staff management; create new Emergency department staff members and referral department medical staff, assign status (current non-current), plus filtered name searches. Agency staff in particular rotate periodically, they can remain in the database, but be simply removed from the current active staff list. A range of routine daily reports.

emergency department pms admininistration of doctors and nurses
  • simple current Medical Officer and Nursing staff tracking
  • create new doctor and nurse records, assign departments, edit status (current, non-current) search doctors and nurses by name
  • Single click Report generation for 'Whiteboard', Triaged (today or yesterday, by date) , Current patients (today or yesterday), discharged patients( today or yesterday),Patient Totals (counts per triage priority per day, current or last month)

PMS - Search layout functions

Powerful search current and discharged Emergency Department patients, by name and/or URN, or date range.

emergency-department-pms-search-650
  • Search by patient name or URN, or triage dates, with priority, Diagnosis, RAT Response, Disposal profile, Discharge date/time, Stay Time

PMS - Admin interface

Additionally there is controlled access to edit a range of data in dedicated layouts - Diagnosis defaults, Guidelines and Procedures Help, and much more.