The addition of an additional two questions to the ICU board meant that the display view was not correctly printing in PDF and the final column, with the all important comments field was missed off the page. Rather than trying to work a whole lot of magic and make the page re-size and print correctly I went for the easy option and have amalgamated the DHB and ICU columns into one in order to pull the comments column back onto the PDF page view.
Whilst this increases the length of the page slightly it was always going to be challenging to fit 25 ICUs on a normal resolution display but over the next couple of weeks I may try and create an alternative display view sized for data projection which will show all ICUs but may need to omit some details like phone, fax and email.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Changes to filtering the Task Status Board
The task status board has been amended to improve the filtering and presentation of tasks to agencies that have a substantial number of tasks.
Now whilst you may not think that the 100 or so tasks that the majority of health agencies have received during the pandemic are to unmanageable for a variety of reasons - not least the Ministry NHCC being the hub of 21 DHBs we currently have 27 pages of in progress or closed tasks.
We've used a bit of code to create a drop down list which runs a series of filters. These filters present only tasks that are due in either 24, 48 or 120 hours (5 days). It also excludes all completed tasks (removing 26 pages of closed tasks and therefore speeding up page load) and just for completeness also shows tasks that have expired or were due in the preceding 48 hours. The remain filters for 'All' and 'All Open Tasks' allows both open and closed tasks outside those timeframes to be viewed.
The "My Tasks' filter button continues to work in conjunction with the drop down filters to show those tasks that your user position has either created or been assigned.
The Search functionality remains the same and allows you to search in effect a hidden field which is populated from the values within the subject, details, requester and name fields. Unfortunately you cannot search on both fields and the unique Task ID number but have raised raised an enhancement request with ESI to allow multiple search fields (it is currently one or the other).
Now whilst you may not think that the 100 or so tasks that the majority of health agencies have received during the pandemic are to unmanageable for a variety of reasons - not least the Ministry NHCC being the hub of 21 DHBs we currently have 27 pages of in progress or closed tasks.
We've used a bit of code to create a drop down list which runs a series of filters. These filters present only tasks that are due in either 24, 48 or 120 hours (5 days). It also excludes all completed tasks (removing 26 pages of closed tasks and therefore speeding up page load) and just for completeness also shows tasks that have expired or were due in the preceding 48 hours. The remain filters for 'All' and 'All Open Tasks' allows both open and closed tasks outside those timeframes to be viewed.
The "My Tasks' filter button continues to work in conjunction with the drop down filters to show those tasks that your user position has either created or been assigned.
The Search functionality remains the same and allows you to search in effect a hidden field which is populated from the values within the subject, details, requester and name fields. Unfortunately you cannot search on both fields and the unique Task ID number but have raised raised an enhancement request with ESI to allow multiple search fields (it is currently one or the other).
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Australasian WebEOC Users Group Meeting
Preceding the Health Sector Reference Group a number of Australasian WebEOC users are going to meet on Monday 24 August to discuss issues around interoperability, best practice, training and WebEOC development.
Whilst the current economic climate has made travel difficult for agencies I really hope that some of the Australian agencies will be able to make it, but we should still have confirmed attendance from Maritime NZ, Auckland City Council and Ministry of Health.
One of the key discussion points will be on interoperability and sharing common operating picture. There are a range of ways to achieve this and over the last 3 months Health have added log ons at various levels to nearly 100 agencies in order to better share data around the pandemic response however there are also smarter ways to work with database to database links. With that in mind we'd welcome attendance from other agencies who have an EMIS capability or are looking at acquiring one in order to ensure interoperability between agencies in the future.
Whilst the current economic climate has made travel difficult for agencies I really hope that some of the Australian agencies will be able to make it, but we should still have confirmed attendance from Maritime NZ, Auckland City Council and Ministry of Health.
One of the key discussion points will be on interoperability and sharing common operating picture. There are a range of ways to achieve this and over the last 3 months Health have added log ons at various levels to nearly 100 agencies in order to better share data around the pandemic response however there are also smarter ways to work with database to database links. With that in mind we'd welcome attendance from other agencies who have an EMIS capability or are looking at acquiring one in order to ensure interoperability between agencies in the future.
EMIS Reference Group meetings
A number of meetings postponed because of the Pandemic response at the end of May have been rescheduled for the end of August in Wellington.
The most important of these meetings is on Tuesday 25 August which will see the Health Sector EMIS Reference group meeting to discuss the effectiveness of WebEOC during the current pandemic and what other operational changes need to be made going forward. The reference group has representatives from District Health Boards, Public Health Units, Ambulance Providers and Comms Centre and a number of other specialist providers.
An email went out to the wider health emergency management community with a copy of the agenda and their local representatives but if anyone has not received this please feel free to email me webeoc@moh.govt.nz
The most important of these meetings is on Tuesday 25 August which will see the Health Sector EMIS Reference group meeting to discuss the effectiveness of WebEOC during the current pandemic and what other operational changes need to be made going forward. The reference group has representatives from District Health Boards, Public Health Units, Ambulance Providers and Comms Centre and a number of other specialist providers.
An email went out to the wider health emergency management community with a copy of the agenda and their local representatives but if anyone has not received this please feel free to email me webeoc@moh.govt.nz
Monday, July 20, 2009
Intensive Care Unit direct dashboard reporting via WebEOC
Over the last week ICU clinical directors and their staff from around the country have been getting used to providing direct local figures for their facility into the DHB Dashboard.
In this case it is Auckland DHB which has a Paediatric ICU (Starship) as well as Cardio Vascular and Department of Critical Care Medicine ICUs. These three ICUs all provide summed figures to the main DHB board.
It has also been an opportunity to start using some of the built-in reporter functionality of the system, and for the non WebEOC Admins out there this basically allows the admins to build a database query and store it on the control panel as a weblink. Clicking the link will open another window and return the pre-canned report which can then been exported to excel and sliced and diced as required. This is a whole level of functionality we have not really utilised so far but allows historical reports and trends over time to be easily viewed.
For example: Want to see how the incident details board has changed over time? - simply run a report and it will show what time and what user changed any of the specified fields. Of course there are a few limitations, because it is returning raw data fields you need to know what the data fields you are interested in were called and sometimes what was clearly labelled to the developer might not be clear to someone looking at the report later.
The data fields were developed by an ICU Advisory group representing intensivists and ICU nursing staff from around the country as well as the Ministry. Colin McArthur, Clinical Director from Auckland Department of Critical Care Medicine and the Operations Team in the National Health Coordination Centre were instrumental in supporting the development of this board and persuading users that we could do better than trying to manage 25 excel spreadsheets returned daily.
The ICU dashboard was built as an additional table within the existing DHB Dashboard. This allows a DHB to add as many ICU facilities as they have and then edit and update the records for those ICUs. The previous ICU data that the DHB Emergency Operations Centre had been entering around patients with confirmed H1N1 is now automatically populated via a related list function from the ICU data.
For a DHB with more that one ICU the numbers for each respective category are automatically summed and provided as a return for the DHB. As you can see below the ICU details appear as a nested table within the DHB detail display.
In this case it is Auckland DHB which has a Paediatric ICU (Starship) as well as Cardio Vascular and Department of Critical Care Medicine ICUs. These three ICUs all provide summed figures to the main DHB board.
There is also a display view linked off the main the DHB Dashboard that provides a consolidated view of all of the ICU units. This type of functionality is incredibly useful and the print to PDF button allows a snapshot view to be rapidly disseminated and shared.
It has also been an opportunity to start using some of the built-in reporter functionality of the system, and for the non WebEOC Admins out there this basically allows the admins to build a database query and store it on the control panel as a weblink. Clicking the link will open another window and return the pre-canned report which can then been exported to excel and sliced and diced as required. This is a whole level of functionality we have not really utilised so far but allows historical reports and trends over time to be easily viewed.For example: Want to see how the incident details board has changed over time? - simply run a report and it will show what time and what user changed any of the specified fields. Of course there are a few limitations, because it is returning raw data fields you need to know what the data fields you are interested in were called and sometimes what was clearly labelled to the developer might not be clear to someone looking at the report later.
Lates updates and changes
The ongoing development of board 47, the DHB Dasboard, including the development of the Intensive Care Unit as well as more consistent reporting via EpiSurv means that board 10 Case Summary has been removed from suers control panels.
We are currently working on an API that will provide a view only display of high level summary data direct from EpiSurv that can displayed on a WebEOC board.
We are currently working on an API that will provide a view only display of high level summary data direct from EpiSurv that can displayed on a WebEOC board.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Auckland CDEM Group ready to support Health Sector with WebEOC
Fred Wilson, who works with Auckland City Council to support their instance of WebEOC has let me have this update on some of the excellent joint planning around response activities that is taking place in the Region. It's really encouraging to see some good operational examples of data exchange and interoperability taking place.
The Auckland CDEM Group, which comprises the Auckland Regional Council and Rodney, North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland City, Manukau, Papakura and Franklin Councils, has completed preparations to provide welfare support in the region should this become necessary.
Using the Auckland City instance of WebEOC, council personnel have been trained to use the system, and supported by the Auckland Region Welfare Advisory Group members (which comprises agencies such as Work & Income, Child Youth and Family, Red Cross, Salvation Army, SPCA, St John, etc.) procedures have been set up to action welfare requests, if this is requested. The current process is that the Northern Region Health Co-ordination Centre (NRHCC) is managing welfare requests associated with consequences of the pandemic in the region, but if the volume becomes unmanageable they may ask for CDEM support.
Preparations include the establishment of a dedicated call centre to take requests for welfare assistance from people referred there from the MoH Healthline. Details will be entered directly into WebEOC, assessed by the Group EOC, and assigned to the various council EOCs as appropriate for action. Where specialist assistance is required, the council will request support from one or more of the welfare agencies. As each request is progressed and action taken, updates entered into WebEOC will be monitored by the Group EOC to detect any areas of over-commitment or delays in responding to requests.
Two short exercises were conducted in early July to test the system and the Auckland CDEM Group region is now ready to provide support if needed.
Using a feature known as Dual Commit, the MoH and Auckland City WebEOC instances can exchange data at the server level. Through this component, the Auckland CDEM personnel can directly access selected non-medical MoH boards such as the National Significant Events and School Closures, and thus easily keep up to date with developments.
The Auckland CDEM Group, which comprises the Auckland Regional Council and Rodney, North Shore, Waitakere, Auckland City, Manukau, Papakura and Franklin Councils, has completed preparations to provide welfare support in the region should this become necessary.
Using the Auckland City instance of WebEOC, council personnel have been trained to use the system, and supported by the Auckland Region Welfare Advisory Group members (which comprises agencies such as Work & Income, Child Youth and Family, Red Cross, Salvation Army, SPCA, St John, etc.) procedures have been set up to action welfare requests, if this is requested. The current process is that the Northern Region Health Co-ordination Centre (NRHCC) is managing welfare requests associated with consequences of the pandemic in the region, but if the volume becomes unmanageable they may ask for CDEM support.
Preparations include the establishment of a dedicated call centre to take requests for welfare assistance from people referred there from the MoH Healthline. Details will be entered directly into WebEOC, assessed by the Group EOC, and assigned to the various council EOCs as appropriate for action. Where specialist assistance is required, the council will request support from one or more of the welfare agencies. As each request is progressed and action taken, updates entered into WebEOC will be monitored by the Group EOC to detect any areas of over-commitment or delays in responding to requests.
Two short exercises were conducted in early July to test the system and the Auckland CDEM Group region is now ready to provide support if needed.
Using a feature known as Dual Commit, the MoH and Auckland City WebEOC instances can exchange data at the server level. Through this component, the Auckland CDEM personnel can directly access selected non-medical MoH boards such as the National Significant Events and School Closures, and thus easily keep up to date with developments.
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