Westmead Breast Cancer Institute successfully launched a new electronic medical record breast cancer module (Breast Cancer eMR) on the 21st November 2017. The BCI Breast Cancer eMR provides real time/bedside data capture and the ability to view and share patient medical information across all NSW health facilities where Cerner Millennium is used.
Associate Professor Nirmala Pathmanathan, Director of Westmead Breast Cancer Institute, was the project sponsor and one of the developers of the module. She said “this has been a massive undertaking for our clinical teams, and a very critical project for the BCI. This project was spearheaded by Associate Professor Elisabeth Elder, one of our senior Oncoplastic Breast Surgeons at the BCI and the Director of our research program. Elisabeth was the lead clinician involved in the creation of this breast specific electronic record. It was developed with clinical pathways for breast cancer patients in mind. Ultimately the captured data will contribute to a master database which can then be used for research and other activities”.
Associate Professor Elisabeth Elder, was delighted that years of work was finally coming to fruition, saying “not only does the electronic record enable real time data capture, but also sharing of this data with multidisciplinary specialists involved in the diagnosis and management of breast cancer patients. Elisabeth also refers to the uniform capture and documentation of MDT proceedings commenting “This system allows MDT recommendations and discussions to be recorded in a uniform manner using specifically developed electronic templates. In addition various templates can be collated to enable patient letters for timely correspondence with General Practitioners and other care providers.
Ultimately this all the data points captured in this electronic record with contribute to a “data lake” forming a comprehensive master database of breast cancer patients which can be used for research, clinical performance monitoring, audit etc. This will be a major enhancement for the BCI’s research program.