Despite cyberattack, QEH official praises benefits of ‘technology boost’

Although acknowledging that a cyberattack over a year ago disrupted services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), a senior official has stressed the importance of transitioning the healthcare facility into the digital age.

Director of Medical Services Anthony Harris says the digitisation process will bring several benefits, including increased efficiency and reduced wastage.

Recalling the effects of the cyberattack in December 2022, which resulted in the suspension of all Internet-dependent services at the QEH, he said: “This necessitated a backward step for a lot of the things that have been slowly put in place….  X-rays with laboratory services and stuff like that. The digitisation processes all had to be reversed back to the manual process. Lots of data was inaccessible.

“And so the hospital was quite strained and challenged. The IT Department put in several hours in trying to correct this along with the help of other ministries, like MIST [Ministry of Industry Innovation Science and Technology] and other consultants who are experts in cyber security. That was a big challenge.”

The QEH executive told Barbados TODAY that the hospital had initiated a project funded by the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) to achieve full digitisation.

According to the Bank’s website, the modification of the Public Sector Modernisation Programme Supplementary Non Reimbursable Investment Financing Digital Transformation of the QEH project is aimed at supporting the digital transformation of Barbados’ primary acute care medical facility, by “creating the necessary enabling environment to effect positive change”.

The goal is to digitise the hospital’s records, including patient information, appointment systems, and medical records. This transformation is expected to improve the flow of patient information and enhance efficiency. The move toward digital records is seen as a way to eliminate issues related to missing paper-based records, ensuring that patients receive proper and timely care.

“You may ask why would we be excited about that when we just had a cybersecurity attack, which is just that – it attacks your digitisation systems,” said Harris. “But I think that the system brings with it the promise of increasing efficiency and reduction of wastage. So those are things that we look forward to.”

He added that the hospital’s records are still manual.

“Our appointment system and ‘to clinics’ notes . . . we have those digitised but the medical record itself is a paper-based system still; that is one of the things we need to move towards in 2024. That is being managed by a consultant. Ms Louise Bob, who is [the QEH’s] Director of Support Services is our team lead and they are already looking at the process of the acquisition of the digital system.”

Harris noted that the goal was to complete the process this year as the benefits will significantly outweigh the challenges encountered during the transition.

“What we have seen over time is the burgeoning expansion of the paper-based medical records,” he said.”You would come to the clinic [and] you would hear every morning, at least five notes for the clinic [are] missing. You might say that it is just five but the truth is, it is only that because there has been a lot of running around, one, but two, those are five patients who didn’t get proper service. So we need to have a digital record system that would eliminate that possibility.”
(RG)