After spending much of 2020 at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne with my son, I was surprised at my first meeting at the Perth Children's Hospital to find an old school medical file with Jack's name on it, ready to be written in.  My initial thought, being 2021, was how outrageous.. they must pay people to double handle and type up all their notes... however, more appalling was the fact that they actually use these files... and rely on them for my son's medical records.

Coming from RCH, where I could log in as a parent to the My RCH Portal, see any past or upcoming appointments, read the notes that were written by each of the health professionals post our appointment and actions we committed to, see Jack's growth charts, every single test result, referral letter, view a condensed version of his health summary... and so much more... and that's just for the parents!  Health Professionals had quick access to all this information and more.

When I go to PCH, I often have to tell the health professionals all about Jack's history, right from the beginning, who he's seen, what tests he's had, what the results were, and so on.  They often spend time trying to either find the file, if it hasn't been returned from another department, or read through and work out the handwriting of someone else (and lets be honest, doctors don't always have the most legible writing!)  It's not the health professionals' fault, they are obviously already understaffed and busy (which is another issue), how can they be expected to efficiently read through each patient's file and decipher the information... and imagine those children who have multiple... and I mean A LOT of files!!!  I feel so passionately about the advantages of an electronic medical system as a parent, and doctors I've spoken to are equally as passionate and disappointed the hospital didn't get the funding for this when the hospital opened.

I genuinely feel Jack's care would be improved, the staff at the hospital would be more efficient, they would engage easily with each other and have a more consultative, multidisciplinary approach. And we don't spend a lot of time at the hospital now days... I can imagine for some very sick children, this would improve the safety of patients in regards to medications, real time results of tests and information, handover of patient records between professionals... so much less room for error!

And the obvious benefit... less wastage of paper, storage areas for records, and people being paid to cart files around the hospital.