Real-time data is being provided to many of Canterbury’s HealthPathways users via an innovative online portal for Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) staff that tracks bottlenecks and service availability.

The new intranet portal – called Seeing Our System – is designed to improve the flow of patients to the right services in a health system that has seen its fair share of challenges since before the 2010-11 Canterbury earthquakes.

Pre-earthquakes, Canterbury’s health system was projected to run out of capacity by 2014. However, despite the pressure of meeting that estimated growth in demand and responding to the unexpected impact of the earthquakes, the CDHB is successfully improving services for its patients.

And part of the reason for that success is innovations like Seeing Our System, which joins HealthPathways as another home-grown online resource optimised for the usability of health system staff.

Announcing the Seeing Our System portal to staff, CDHB CEO David Meates described the need for an online resource to communicate real-time data.

“It might sound simplistic, but in reality, we are a big complex system, with all manner of levers to tweak and adjust until things are back in check. We need to review and adjust our resources on a daily basis to ensure we have the right people, in the right place at the right time doing the right thing. Every part of our system needs to play its part, and play it well.”

The Seeing Our System portal is run out of the new Christchurch Hospital Operations Centre, which attendees to the HealthPathways Conference in November will have the chance to see in person thanks to an organised tour of the facility.

Seeing Our System: The new online portal for CDHB staff breaks down the real-time data on each department to help identify bottlenecks in the local health system. This screenshot is displaying the data for the Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department. (Click image to enlarge)

Seeing Our System: This screenshot is displaying the available dashboard reports about the Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department. (Click image to enlarge)