QEH to introduce patient app, portal under digital health rollout

Clients of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital will soon be able to access their records and services via a patient portal and a mobile app that is expected to be rolled out in the near future, a hospital official has said.

Acting Director of Support Services Dr Gerry Warner, who is leading the QEH’s digital transformation initiative, a key pillar of the hospital’s strategic plan up to 2028, made the disclosure on the QEH Pulse Radio Show.

The hospital is still largely paper-based in its day-to-day operations, which means patient records are stored across multiple departments and must often be physically retrieved when needed, he explained. This can sometimes lead to delays in care.

He outlined the ongoing digitisation process at the hospital:

“We already have done over 90 000 paper records and that is several million pages with a company called Abergower, and that allows those paper records now to be available in a searchable PDF format so that your patients who have been with us over the last two years, eventually all of their paper records will be scanned and then we’ll go further back than that as time allows.”

Abergower is a UK-based international digitisation and information management company that converts physical documents, medical records, and rare archives into secure, accessible electronic records. Based in Glasgow, Scotland, Abergower operates a large regional hub here.

Digitisation is progressing in stages, with clinicians expected to eventually have access to patients’ full medical histories in digital form, Dr Warner said.

“That means that as we go and extend the different parts of the health information system through different releases that we have planned, one of the things that would happen is that the doctor would have access to your entire history in digital form.”

He acknowledged that some patients will need support adapting to the new system:

“There are some people who like the comfort of paper, but we’re trying to move away from that further, and as I said, this is all part of the information communications and technology part of the strategy for 2025 to 2028. So we’re trying to accommodate patients where they are at. There will be a period of training for those who we need to help them acclimatise to a digital system.”

The hospital has already begun transitioning to the Universal Health Information System, a process that has caused some delays in pharmacy and medical records services.

“One of the things that has been happening is that we have been transitioning to a new system. This is all in support of what will soon be rolled out as far as the universal health information system is concerned.”

The rollout is being done in phases, he said, beginning with the health and wellness clinic, pharmacy and medical records.

“There would have been some teething issues and a bit of delay.”

Extensive training had been carried out before the system went live:

“Now please understand that training for this started months ago, this is not that we started this and only have training ongoing now. Training started months ago with what was called the super users and the super users are the ones who were able to then tell the NFT team what the processes in their department looked like what the flows in their department looked like and the system is customisable so it was created based on what those super users provided.”

Other staff were later trained, with additional retraining and on-site technical support provided during rollout.

Dr Warner also confirmed that patients will soon be able to access their own health information digitally.

“Each patient will have access to their medical record and to be able to see when their appointments are, their prescriptions, what is in the prescription, and even some degree of medical information on their phones or computers. This is going to be via a patient app and, later, as well, a patient portal.”

The system will be accessible on both mobile devices and web platforms:

“Coming soon will be your patient app and or patient portal the app you can you will be able to access on android and apple platforms and then also via patient portal which is a web portal so you can access that up access that on any computer and even on your same smartphone and that will give you a bit more control of your information reminders to when your next appointments will come straight to that portal our app as well.”

Patients will also be able to enter personal health readings into the system.

(LG)