Electronic patient records (EPR) - I've seen some negative tweets recently about how cumbersome they can be...but EPR is here to stay so it's important to get them right
I'm fortunate to work somewhere with the most amazing EPR set-up...check it out!
A brief 🧵...
Our hospital's IT team have built 1 program from which we get all these options:
E-documents (clinic letters, memos etc)
Blood results
X-rays / scans
Drug chart
Request tests (bloods, imaging, micro, everything)
Link to primary care records
Observations (for in-patients)
There's so much more there too..."Outpatients" allows us to see what we have booked for upcoming clinics including procedural clinic lists like stress echo.
EDMS has the scanned records after hospital admissions
There's even a direct link to UpToDate!
Clicking on e-documents brings up the various specialities that letters are categorised by...and if you click on one division like 'Medicine', you can see the breakdown...so you know instantly where to look to find the letters you need
This is what the menu looks like...you can see if the document is a clinic letter, a MDT meeting entry, a record of a phone call with the patient, a GP referral, a test result (e.g. TTE or TOE) etc...so you can usually find what you want pretty quickly!
The eQuest system allows you to request almost any test, request a specialty consult from another team and also view requests already placed on the system, to avoid repetition / duplication
I know this is a rather unusual thread compared to my normal ones, but I see my wife struggle with her hospital's IT system - literally pulling her hair out at how clunky and difficult it is to navigate - and I realise that getting this right really impacts our working lives!
I've never met any of the @UHSDigital team, but a BIG thank-you from me (and I suspect almost everyone that works here) for a truly special IT system that definitely aids efficiency and facilitates patient care
Interested to hear experiences of others with EPR systems...
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Superb medical student on placement
Keen, energetic, friendly, smart
She wants to go into neurosurgery
I thought I'd better give her some advice
After what my wife went through in her training
I thought the advice was for the future
Little did I realise it had already started
What I had planned on saying:
You're going to receive a lot of unsolicited advice about your intended career
Most of it will be from men
Most will mean well, but will suggest a 'more family-friendly' career choice
Yet, even whilst a student, the 'advice' has started:
'Neurosurgery, are you sure?'
'It's very long & arduous training'
'It's not the most family friendly career'
'You might feel like that now, but in 10yrs you'll probably regret it'
'It's harder to find a partner when you're working all the time'
'GP is a better choice for balance'
Another nice example recently of the importance of a systematic approach to assessment of mitral regurgitation during TOE
Indication was known MR, assess suitability for TEER
Mid oesophageal 4Ch & 5Ch views...wondering if we have the right patient! No real MR to see...
The segmentation approach in the bicommisural view is a very reliable and easy-to-do method
Start at the lateral side of the valve with X-plane (Philips) / MultiD (GE) and you have A1-P1 coaptation on the right side...do this with 2D only & then with colour Doppler too
Then move to the middle of the valve with your cursor, cutting through A2 in bicomm view so you see A2-P2 coaptation on the right side
It takes time to read the paper, read the supplementary appendix, analyse the results, think about them etc!
Some thoughts...🧵
On Sunday I wrote a thread about asymptomatic severe AS and what we knew already from RECOVERY & AVATAR RCTs and what the guidelines currently advocate
Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), when performed with care and diligence, can reveal a lot about the valve. TOE isn't necessary in all cases to determine leaflet pathology.
A worked example below:
In the PLAX view, you can assess the scallops of the leaflets
In a true PLAX view with aortic valve clearly visible, you mostly see the A2-P2 interface. Here, you can see a clear & large prolapse of the posterior leaflet
If you tilt upwards towards the PLAX RV outflow (pulmonary valve) view you see mostly the A1-P1 interface
Here, you can see the valve looks slightly different & no prolapse is seen