After being extensively battle-tested at the Community Care Facilities (CCFs) and the dormitories managed by public healthcare institutions last year, GPConnect (GPC) was selected as the tried-and-tested solution to be the national Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system for COVID-19 vaccination operations (VacOps).
There are good reasons for its selection:
not only is it already linked to key HealthTech systems such as the National Electronic Health Record (NEHR), Critical Medical Information Store (CMIS), the National Immunisation Registry (NIR) and MOH Healthcare Claims Portal (MHCP), the system is also intuitive to learn and use. The GPConnect system can also be enhanced to the required workflows and scaled up for deployment in a short time.
Lastly, IHiS has extensive experience in national Business-HealthTech integration and partnering with healthcare organisations, and have ready capabilities and products to assemble into a solution-offering to jumpstart vaccination operations (VacOps).
What is GPConnect (GPC)?
GPConnect (GPC) is an integrated IT system that comprises a clinic management system (CMS) and an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) solution. It is currently being used by about 200 GP clinics.
Due to its integrated features and ability to be deployed quickly, it was chosen as the EMR to be used at sites performing COVID-19 related operations. Besides continually enhancing GPC to meet CCF requirements in the last year, the team also had to carry out Business-as-Usual activities to support GP Clinics’ operations such as enhancing the system to align it with new vaccination subsidy schemes, and changes to limits for MediSave withdrawals.
Enhancing GPConnect (GPC) to better support Healthcare Staff at Vaccination Operations (VacOps)
To make GPConnect (GPC) more useful for healthcare staff, continual enhancements were made to tailor it specifically for COVID-19 vaccination operations (VacOps). For example, as the national EMR used to manage the vaccination process, GPC had to be integrated with the National Appointment System (NAS) to facilitate the population in booking appointments. To do this, IHiS developed the GPC Appointment Broker to
integrate and better manage the large amount of information flowing between the two systems, with the potential of extension to other source systems. Faced with the urgent need of this application, the team developed the broker over two intense weeks, working through the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Based on IHiS’ ground staff’s observation and
healthcare staff’s feedback, concurrent work was also being done by the GPC’s product team to implement an
optimised and simplified view of GPConnect (GPC) for use at COVID-19 vaccination operations (VacOps) in the anticipated different settings across polyclinics, vaccination centres, GP clinics and selected sites (managed by MVTs). Many enhancements were designed, developed, tested and operationalised rapidly within extremely tight timelines to match the workflow on the ground.
For example, the GPConnect (GPC) system was enhanced to enable the
printing of auto-populated patient information, second appointment and vaccination records on an A5 vaccination card, eliminating the need to hand-write the information. This reduces the processing time for both patients and staff, and also eliminates human errors.
To help staff keep track of the required 30 minutes observation time after COVID-19 vaccination,
the GPC system was modified to allow each patient’s observation end time to be displayed on screen, making it easier for staff at the Observation Station to keep track and identify patients ready for discharge.
The team also tapped on an existing GPC feature of having EMR templates. With just one click, pages such as the screening questionnaires and vaccine orders based on pre-configured settings such as the brand, dose sequence and quantity are
auto populated. This significantly increased the ease of documentation for all processes, as well as minimised the need for repetitive data entry, reducing human error.
In total, there were five releases that enhanced GPConnect (GPC) over six weeks, making it progressively more tailored to the operational needs on the ground, which translate into a
faster, smoother and safer process for patients to receive their COVID-19 vaccination jabs. Before the deployment of each new release, staff do extensive reviews with multiple gates of testing. These activities can typically be done only late at night, so as not to disrupt operations.
Given that many healthcare staff were using GPConnect (GPC) for the first time – over 4,300 new accounts in two months – IHiS had to make sure that it had sufficient manpower to train them on how to use GPC, as well as provide onsite support during the dry runs and go-live. This was a challenge as many vaccination centres (VCs) were being set up concurrently.
As part of a one-IHiS effort, IHiS mobilised non-GPC staff from several IHiS departments, and some from our technology partners such as NCS and Accenture, to help out with site support. About 100 engineers and professionals have since been deployed island-wide, after they attended in-house “train-the-trainers” sessions.
Occasionally, when onsite engineers are unable to resolve certain issues, they turn to specialised help in the form of hotlines manned by GPC experts. Additionally, 200 back-end operational support staff are also hard at work behind the scenes to support COVID-19 vaccination operations (VacOps) in a variety of roles, such as product enhancements, network, IT support and improving operational stability.
“Our goal is provide the best IT in the shortest time and deliver it to our healthcare staff, with efficient and easy-to-use HealthTech. A good IT system means simpler training followed by easier and faster execution of the workflow at the sites. For patients, this translates into them receiving their vaccination in a safer fashion, and with less wait time. I would like to express my deep gratitude for the support of everyone involved – the timelines have been very tight, and many have worked extremely hard to get GPConnect operating smoothly as the national EMR for VacOps.”
Phyllis Yap, Director, GPConnect
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