Junior doctors working in a paper-based context were spending 30-60 minutes each morning preparing handwritten clinical record entries ahead of ward round. This involved writing 20-30 pages with the date, ward round title, per-patient problem list, and patient identifiers.
Auto Ward Round automates this process by extracting patient details and problem list information from a Patient List Summary Report system available in the local context. The tool then provides a one-patient-per-page PDF that can be printed onto clinical record paper.
Since its release in late 2018 Auto Ward Round has been used more than 3,000 times. It has been adopted by medical and surgical teams across at 3 hospitals and remains in daily use.
Aside from clear efficiency and legibility benefits, the tool also seems to promote greater detail in the listing of patient problems in the clinical record. This results in improved activity coding for patient episodes, and therefore represents a boon for activity-funded services.
