POLOKWANE – Led by the Netcare Care-On team, Netcare Pholoso Hospital launched the announcement of a pioneering electronic medical record system last Monday.

Programme manager at Netcare, Nicolene Muller ran the programme for the day and mentioned that the hospital is the first and currently the only hospital in Limpopo to go digital.

The event included a talent show from Pholoso staff who danced a variety of traditional items and recited poems using the care-on system in their scripts.

Pholoso general manager Victor Molepo thanked the Netcare Care-On team for implementing a quality and user friendly system.

“We can boast that we’re the only paperless hospital in the province. Paperless and digital must be engraved in our language going forth because it makes our job easier,” Molepo said.

The managing director of Netcare’s hospital division Jacques du Plessis said a few hospitals in the world have the capability for specialists and healthcare teams to view patients’ clinical information, test results and vital observations remotely in real time.

“Netcare is the first private healthcare provider in South Africa to have invested in developing a state of the art electronic medical record system,” he said.

Molepo added that all the staff and most of the independent healthcare practitioners practicing at Pholoso received training and have enthusiastically embraced the onboarding of the new world class, integrated and fully mobile system, given its unprecedented advantages for enhancing patient care.

Du Plessis said all documentation and management of patient records are done electronically, with full electronic ordering tests by and receiving results from, pathology laboratories, radiology and the blood bank, with information feeding directly into the mobile platform.

“The hospital now has digital integration of medical equipment and devices in ICUs and theatres.”

Du Plessis added that the system is now in use at 43 Netcare hospitals and the team anticipates that all Netcare’s acute care hospitals will have implemented electronic medical records by this month.

“Our staff are excited to be a part of this revolutionary new advancement in healthcare and the promise this project holds for optimising health outcomes for each person in our care. We at Netcare Pholoso Hospital are grateful and excited to be a part of it,” Molepo concluded.