To negate the difficulty of meeting with staff in between their different rosters, quarantine and leave absence, the 'Orthobox' was implemented by Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Orthopaedics Department as a quick reference point on a shared drive for all orthopaedic medical, nursing, allied health, and administration staff.
The information that can be accessed on the drive includes the following:
• education program
• leave rostering for senior medical officer (SMO), visiting medical officer (VMO), fellows, registrars and principal house officers (PHOs)
• master on call roster
• orthopaedic elective theatre templates
• registrar, PHO, resident and fellow information
• unit allocations.
Access to the drive is linked to a login and by having a centralised location for these read-only documents, we can ensure staff are receiving the same accurate information. The items are updated by single staff members to avoid duplication. This has been extremely helpful when rostering has had to be amended due to quarantine requirements, or changes to clinic or operating theatres at short notice.
Also, on the back of COVID-19, PAH introduced the QR attendance record (QRAR) application to the department in February 2021. This allowed consultants, fellows, registrars, and PHOs to sign into various meetings as well as consultant led ward rounds. The data can be extracted through Excel and can be used as part of consultant professional development CPD requirements. This also efficiently captures attendance at weekly multidisciplinary meetings.
E-improvements during a pandemic
Summary
Aim
To develop a QR scanner that provides safety measures in the COVID environment and collect relevant information.
To develop a centralised IT innovation - Orthobox - that collates relevant and live information.
Benefits
The relevant and live information that can be shared to the whole department.
Background
During the COVID pandemic, quarantine created a difficulty when rosters had been drawn up and emailed to staff. The staff's leave, training, and availability in general was communicated in a cumbersome way with multiple emails that were time consuming and led to potential errors.
Solutions Implemented
The Orthobox allows ‘Read Only’ access to one person only and simplified and sped up the process of information sharing substantially.
Similarly, the QRAR enabled management to quickly determine when consultants were doing ward rounds and which staff were attending meetings.
Evaluation and Results
All feedback has been positive from clinical and non-clinical staff and management.
Lessons Learnt
Once a difficulty has been identified it is often a simple solution that can address the issue.
