The Single Digital Patient Record (SDPR) is now live at NSW Health Pathology’s 11 labs and 46 collection centres in the Hunter New England Local Health District, marking a major shift to a connected digital system that will enhance patient care.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy has reached a major mile­stone in the Hunter New Eng­land Local Health Dis­trict, with the suc­cess­ful roll­out of our new statewide lab­o­ra­to­ry infor­ma­tion man­age­ment sys­tem (LIMS) as part of NSW Health’s Sin­gle Dig­i­tal Patient Record (SDPR) across all 11 of its lab­o­ra­to­ries in the region.

The SDPR is now live across the Hunter New Eng­land Local Health District’s 26 hos­pi­tals and more than 100 com­mu­ni­ty and cus­to­di­al set­tings, as well as with­in the Jus­tice Health and Foren­sic Men­tal Health Network.

What it means for patients

For the first time, patient infor­ma­tion, test results and clin­i­cal records are being brought togeth­er into one con­nect­ed dig­i­tal platform.

NSW Health Pathol­o­gy Chief Exec­u­tive Vanes­sa Janis­sen said the tran­si­tion rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in deliv­er­ing safer, more coor­di­nat­ed care.

“Bring­ing infor­ma­tion togeth­er into a sin­gle dig­i­tal record means clin­i­cians can access the right infor­ma­tion at the right time to sup­port patient care,” she said.

“This is a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for NSW Health Pathol­o­gy and our part­ners. We look for­ward to the ben­e­fits it will bring to our patients, clin­i­cians and lab­o­ra­to­ry staff.”

Across the Hunter New Eng­land, NSWHP pathol­o­gy lab­o­ra­to­ries oper­ate at sig­nif­i­cant scale.

Each year, our lab­o­ra­to­ries in the Hunter New Eng­land (HNE) region process more than 1.8 mil­lion sam­ples, per­form­ing more than five mil­lion tests.

Newcastle’s John Hunter Hos­pi­tal alone accounts for more than 2.6 mil­lion tests annu­al­ly, while major region­al cen­tres such as Tam­worth, Mait­land and Taree also han­dle hun­dreds of thou­sands of tests each year. All tests are crit­i­cal to diag­nos­ing and mon­i­tor­ing a wide range of con­di­tions and sup­port­ing appro­pri­ate clin­i­cal care.

Inte­grat­ing this high-vol­ume data into a sin­gle dig­i­tal sys­tem will stream­line work­flows and sup­port faster, more informed clin­i­cal decisions.

What it means for our people

The roll­out fol­lows months of prepa­ra­tion and train­ing for pathol­o­gy staff, ensur­ing teams are equipped to work con­fi­dent­ly in the new environment.

The NSW Health Pathology’s train­ing team has so far deliv­ered 1172 hours of train­ing in the lead up to go-live, with 736 unique reg­is­tered learn­ers com­plet­ing 229 courses.

Senior Oper­a­tions Man­ag­er for Hunter New Eng­land Greg Irwin said the change presents a valu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to improve ser­vice delivery.

“It’s a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to do things bet­ter,” he said. “We are excit­ed to be the first to see the new sys­tem in action.”

John Hunter Hos­pi­tal Direc­tor of Micro­bi­ol­o­gy Dr Hemalatha Varad­han high­light­ed the impor­tance of lead­er­ship dur­ing the transition.

“Senior clin­i­cians have an impor­tant role to play in mak­ing this a suc­cess, sup­port­ing their lab col­leagues and med­ical teams,” she said.

Ear­ly ben­e­fits are already being seen at the John Hunter lab where a small­er-scale go-live in March this year allowed staff to imple­ment the new sys­tem for pro­cess­ing sam­ples from Jus­tice Health.

Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy Lab Man­ag­er Trisha Lus­by said her team had wel­comed improved sam­ple trace­abil­i­ty and real-time dig­i­tal work­lists, reduc­ing reliance on paper.

For Haema­tol­ogy Lab Man­ag­er Brid­get Par­tridge, the trans­for­ma­tion has been a sig­nif­i­cant high­light for her team.

“It was pret­ty spe­cial being part of the first sam­ples to come through,” she said.

“Know­ing that we’ve played a small part at the start of some­thing that will trans­form labs across the state.”

As SDPR con­tin­ues to expand, our new statewide lab­o­ra­to­ry infor­ma­tion sys­tem is set to trans­form how pathol­o­gy ser­vices sup­port patient care across NSW.

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