OUH leads the way in digitisation

Odense University Hospital has installed their electronic patient records. Director Peder Jest gives you an insight into one of the most digital hospitals in the world, where they now are about to gain millions of Danish kroner from streamlined working procedures.

10,000 employees, 105,000 inpatients, 900,000 outpatient calls, an annual budget of 5.3 billion DKK. Did you know that Odense University Hospital (OUH) is the largest hospital in Denmark? And are you aware that it is one of the most digital hospitals in the world? This was emphasized last year when the OUH received an award from HIMSS Analytics Europe.

One of the cornerstones of OUH’s digitisation is the electronic patient records system (EPR), called COSMIC, which has been delivered by Logica. - “EPR provides you with coherent and safe continuity of care - especially across depart-ments - because all your data is collected in one place and is accessible by our staff from anywhere at any time,” Peder Jest explains.

Som As a director at OUH, he has been responsible for the implementation of COSMIC during the recent years. A job which has been a daily strategic management task for the board of directors. - “We have gained all the advantages and opportunities from EPR. Now we need to digitise the remaining working procedures, so that there are, for example, no longer doctors, who continue to print, take notes by hand and pass them on to a medical secretary who then enters them into the EPR. The digitisation project should give us an efficiency improvement return of 12 million Danish kroner,” says Peder, and adds: - “We could have ‘sold’ the project in a better way at an earlier stage, by offering departments the option to keep half of the money for each secretary position that they saved when they use EPR. It is more difficult to say it afterwards.”

A redundant IT department
Speaking of efficiency improvement, according to Peder, it is now that the OUH really begins configuring the electronic patient record system, so that it suits the needs of each of the 36 clinical departments. - “The medication prescription and dispensation processes at the children's ward could, for example, be different from the ones at the other wards.” - “When the politicians talk about EPR, they think of registration and overview. But EPR will above all support the clinical functions, and for this reason it is imperative to involve the medical professionals at an early stage. For this very reason, we have essentially closed down our IT department. Instead, they work on innovation, LEAN and clinical processes.”
Integration is more important than a national EPR.

Throughout the years, the politicians have wished for one joint EPR system throughout Denmark, but to Peder Jest this is less relevant: - “It is more important to have an EPR which is easy to integrate with the other systems at the hospital, such as the laboratory system. In this way, COSMIC has proved to be particularly flexible. And it is more important that EPR is capable of exchanging high quality data with large databases, such as a database for unintended incidents, so that the individual practitioner can share his data and compare them with general development.”

PAS is the next project
Several large IT project are expected at the OUH – especially the roll-out of a new patient administration system (PAS), which also is part of the COSMIC suite delivered by Logica. - “It is a huge benefit that PAS and EPR have the same origin, as the master data of the patient is used in both systems,” says Peder Jest.

Another strategic focus is the continued digitisation in the OUH of the patient who can and will claim responsibility of his treatment. - “The self-acting patient will have the same access to his health data as the professionals. The person in question will be able to write in his EPR, take tests, receive test responses and carry out medication,” says Peder, and mentions diabetic patients as a group that is rapidly progressing in this area.

- “But as a university hospital, we must also depend on modern technology if we are to maintain and develop our specialities. The self-acting patient can seek specialists anywhere in the world, and we therefore need to ensure the best possible access to our own. The doctors’ mindset of patients automatically coming solely to them is outdated.”

COSMIC at the Region of Southern Denmark

• The Region of Southern Denmark has purchased the electronic patient record system COSMIC EPR and the patient administration system COSMIC PAS for the entire region. When COSMIC has been implemented at all hospitals in the region, it will have around 22,000 users.
• Further to this, the region has acquired, but not yet implemented, a number of additional COSMIC modules for the psychiatry and management information departments, as well as various technical modules that support hospital operation on a large scale.
• Logica has implemented COSMIC EPR at the Odense University Hospital with more than 9,000 users and 36 clinical departments. The EPR solution contains the modules: medicine, requisition/response and notes. Additionally included are a number of functions that connect the three modules, such as patient summary, bed management and notification (electronic messaging function). At OUH COSMIC is integrated to patient administration, laboratory systems (clinical chemistry, clinical immunology, microbiology, pathology), RIS/PACS and image editing.