Sydney, Australia – 13 July 2018

In an open public tender, Northern Health, Victoria, has partnered with NEXA Group to create a patient centric, Health Service-wide patient flow solution across three of its major campuses – The Northern Hospital, Craigieburn Medical Centre and the Broadmeadows Hospital.

Northern Health’s Specialist Clinics currently schedule over 5,000 outpatient appointments per week across three campuses within close to 400 clinic sessions involving nearly 300 staff. Paramount to Northern Health is safe, efficient and effective patient care. Faced with this volume of activity Northern Health was seeking a solution to improve flow for patients attending this clinics, and reduce the manual practices associated the administration of these clinics.

“The NEXA solution in Q-Flow was successful in the competitive tender process due to a strong track record of implementing similar systems at other Victorian health facilities. This confidence was also supported by the Service Design approach employed to understand our requirements, and the ability to integrate Q-Flow into a number of our patient administration systems” said, Carolyn Downing, Operations Director, Northern Health.

The project will incorporate NEXA’s Service Design methodology into the patient journey transformation.

NEXA has been tasked with designing and implementing a patient flow solution that meets the current and future needs of all users including both patients and staff.

“Northern Health recognises the importance of patients no longer being passive participants in their health care journey. Patient interactions with their healthcare professionals have changed and the design of new services is imperative to meet the needs of patients today and in the future.” Carolyn said.

The NEXA solution will allow patients to interact with self check-in kiosks across the 3 sites to eradicate queues, allowing patients to self-manage their check-in process. The solution will include Medicare Online Patient Validation and will optimise the waiting experience through the use of SMS allowing patients to no longer have to sit in congested waiting areas, but relocate to cafes and more comfortable areas within the facility to wait for their consultation. The inclusion of the Post Consultation eForms Module will reduce the amount of paperwork for the clinicians. It will improve billing accuracy and ensures follow up instructions are captured before the patient leaves the facility, closing the occasion of service.

Commenting on the appointment, NEXA’s Director of Growth, Andrew Cooper said, ‘NEXA’s patient journey solution is already streamlining the flow of patients in 19 healthcare facilities around the country. The opportunity to work with one of Victoria’s most progressive healthcare providers is an honour and we are keen to get our system up and running so the team at Northern Health can benefit from the operational efficiency gains and the patients can enjoy a more streamlined experience”.