or they were calling to find out their result, sending busy staff off looking for the answer. Keeping guests informed automatically saves staff time and resource and greatly reduces guests’ anxiety in what can be a stressful situation, Hopley says. Social license People’s private health information is being held in these new national systems. Tight security and privacy are key to retaining what is called ‘social license’ to collect, store and use this information for the public good. Issues that might be insignificant to some people cause concern for others and can lead to a loss of trust, so the Ministry has worked closely with the Privacy Commission on the design of the new systems. The app used in MIQF initially
Each facility now has its own dashboard giving a quick overview of all the guests and key information such as their current Covid-19 status, whether they are confined to their room and what tasks need to be completed that day. The BCMS also records daily health checks and can send a referral to the team of GPs who are responsible for the guests’ clinical care. These GPs use the system for making notes, allocating tasks to nurses and electronic prescribing. When a guest is due for a test, staff use a new app to digitally link the test order, the guest, and the specimen through barcode scanning. Removing paper from the process significantly reduces the time taken to process tests in the lab and the possibility of labelling errors, which were previously occurring up to 20 percent of the time.
other countries that have struggled to implement a single national identifier in health. The NHI has proved absolutely crucial to linking all the new data and processes together at the border, says GM of national digital services at the Ministry of Health, Michael Dreyer. A match is found for around 80 percent of passengers and if they are new to the country, they can be assigned an NHI before they land. Border staff then know who people are and can complete initial health checks before allowing them into the country. From there, the border solution takes the new cohort of people and maps them into managed isolation hotels. This drives information into the Border Clinical Management System, automatically creating a guest’s testing schedule and set of tasks, letting MIQF staff know when swabs need to be done, when that task has been completed and what the results are. Clinical lead for the BCMS Lara Hopley says, “this means people don’t have to repeat themselves continually. As guests touch down in the country, the system knows who they are and can verify their identity via their NHI.” Managing isolation Dreyer describes setting up 32 hotels as Managed Isolation and Quarantine Facilities as a “complex logistical exercise” and says technology has been critical to enabling a consistent, efficient and effective process nationwide. hinz.org. z/p ge/JOIN
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“PEOPLE DON’T HAVE TO REPEAT THEMSELVES CONTINUALLY. AS GUESTS TOUCH DOWN IN THE COUNTRY, THE SYSTEM KNOWS WHO THEY ARE AND CAN VERIFY THEIR IDENTITY VIA THEIR NHI.” – LARA HOPLEY
The BCMS automatically orders the lab test and once the result is ready it is sent back to the system and into the national clinical data repository, which feeds the government’s daily Covid-19 case updates. The BCMS holds every guest’s mobile phone number and texts them when there is a negative result. If a result is positive, they get a phone call. Test results were previously being handed to guests on slips of paper
had the guest’s image stored on it to allow nursing staff to positively identify people, but some guests were concerned about how these might be passed on or used by other agencies and the use of pictures was dropped. As part of the All of Government response, the Ministry of Health works with other government agencies, DHBs, defence staff and police. Dreyer says bringing together an aggregate workforce means you want to avoid a
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