​New NGEMR System Brings NUHCS Forward As A Future-Ready Institute

The latest centralised digital medical record system enables more efficient patient care management

PULSE Issue 39 | June 2022

Moving to the Next Generation Electronic Medical Record (NGEMR) platform is an initiative by Singapore’s Ministry of Health to put in place an advanced centralised electronic medical record system for the country's population. With the NGEMR platform, a patient’s journey from the point of admission to discharge, outpatient appointments, medical and administrative data will be captured, recorded and harmonised across the National University Health System (NUHS), which includes the National University Heart Centre, Singapore (NUHCS), and the National Healthcare Group (NHG). This allows healthcare providers to provide a seamless patient experience by responding in a cohesive and efficient manner. The digitalisation of patients’ medical data also ensures that the necessary medical team have quick access to the latest relevant medical records and avoid unnecessary duplication. Critical information such as past medical history, results from any blood tests and x-rays or other investigations done from the point of admission can be captured and communicated accurately as the patient moves through the healthcare system from primary to tertiary care. Such a technological transformation is expected to yield results such as higher quality patient care, increased patient satisfaction, and enhancement of staff experience and improving operational efficiencies. Yet, migrating from a previous legacy software to an entirely new platform and system across different departments, specialties and healthcare entities requires a herculean effort carried out meticulously to avoid errors and mistakes.

During the system migration, an inevitable downtime period was also required for tech engineers to transfer all the data and set-up the platform, which meant that all medical teams had to rely on antiquated paper forms temporarily before subsequently back loading the information onto the new system. Staff from all levels and departments, including senior management, had to work through the late nights and early mornings to test the viability of the system before the migration was declared final and complete on 26 Feb 2022. This is not the end; but the start of the next chapter as NUHCS moves forward into the future.