Health and Wellness Informatics News
NTFGH reveals its lesson behind the first HIMSS EMRAM Stage 7 revalidation of Singapore
Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, comes up with its lesson for the first HIMSS EMRAM stage 7 for the revalidation. This got huge success after being operational from the totally virtual medium.
Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, which features 700 beds, is located at the Jurong East in Singapore. In November 2020, the hospital made their success in revalidating the EMRAM stage 7 achievements with HIMSS.
The revalidation success was for the healthcare system of Singapore, which completed its operation totally being virtual. It took place in the APAC region. However, as the COVID-19 started, the first revalidation with the stage under the EMRAM criteria got updated in 2018. The three days of virtual revalidation has met various challenges from both the standpoint of technicality and execution.
The preparation process for the EMRAM Stage 7 for NTFGH started in early 2019. This led the hospital to seek funding from Jurong Health Management. The technical preparation comes with many details. It also includes the configuration of the EMR system for the collection of blood specimens. Writing of new reports for the blood specimens and rerunning it for the administration took place.
Team training for the collection of barcoded blood specimens, report validation, and ensuring proper security comes in the queue. The virtual revalidation has served various lessons to the team. The hospital also needs to manage the connecting of mobile phones with Zoom accounts and spreading of the presentations.
As Dr. Tan says, the team ensured internet bandwidth-friendly support to leave no blind spot with the weak signal. Though the lack of physical interaction made it harder, there are better opportunities that opened up for the other departments. The MI department added up for the virtual validation as the observers, which served great benefit.
HIMSS, the national HeathTech agency of Singapore, works with NTFGH to help with the set-up of the IT infrastructure. This serves better linking with the EMR system while offering the proper cybersecurity. A system analyst also helped in setting up the configuration of the barcoded blood specimen collection.
