Patient transfers key to clinical outcomes

The clinical lead of SA Health’s new State Health Coordination Centre

SA Health’s new patient transfer process will streamline transfers and admission processes and improve patient care.

Dr Megan Brooks is Clinical Partnerships Lead for SA Health’s new State Health Coordination Centre (SHCC) and has led the development of the Statewide Interfacility Transfer Process (SIFT).

The SHCC uses real-time data and insights to better understand patient and clinician needs in the community, emergency departments, hospital wards and sub-acute facilities across the SA Health System.

The SIFT project focuses on the tools and processes to support clinicians caring for patients requiring transfer between facilities. It is the result of a co-design process with clinicians from across the state, including Royal Flying Doctors Service and SA

Ambulance Service. One of the identified barriers was the lack of a standardised process that made it difficult to track patients who are awaiting transfers, another was the inability to record patient facing clinical information in the medical record.

Dr Brooks says SIFT will improve the coordination between Local Health Networks and SAAS to ensure that resources are available to facilitate safe and timely care for patients being transferred between hospitals – including those who are acutely unwell requiring inpatient admission via ED or returning to peri-urban/regional hospitals and rehabilitation care.

She says that current processes require clinicians to undertake multiple manual administrative tasks that could be addressed by electronic tools and better shared visibility of information. SIFT will capitalise on new IT tools to help clinicians record and access clinical information that will make transfers more efficient.