Page 144 - Hospital Authority Convention 2017

Service Enhancement Presentations
HOSPITAL AUTHORITY CONVENTION 2017

F4.5 Clinical Safety and Quality Service II 16:15 Room 421

Seeing before Doing, and Achieving an Operation with Better Quality and Patient Safety – Filmless Operating
Theatres Project
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Lau AMT , Lam RKY , Ho RYY , Yam KY , Khoo JLS , Cheung NT , Cheung AWM , Lam AKW , Cheung RCK , Poon JCM 4
1 Clinical Effectiveness and Technology Management, Quality and Safety Division, Hospital Authority Head Office, Department
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of Neurosurgery, Tuen Mun Hospital, Department of Radiology, Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital, Information
Technology and Health Informatics Division, Hospital Authority Head Office, Hong Kong
Introduction
Radiology images are crucial in supporting an effective treatment. Surgeons can make use of radiology images (e.g.
Computed tomography thin cuts) for pre-operative planning before operations. Filmless Operating Theatres (OT) Project is a
three-year corporate-wide project that aims at facilitating surgical services and modernising Hospital Authority (HA) through
implementation of filmless technology. It covers 23 HA hospitals from seven clusters with about 230 OT rooms, and involves
specialties like neurosurgery, surgery and orthopaedics and traumatology, etc.
Objectives
This project aims to facilitate clinicians’ viewing of radiology images in OT rooms, and enhance pre-operative planning which
facilitates operations with improved accuracy, quality and patient safety. A central, corporate-wide radiology infrastructure,
allowing an automated, cross-cluster image retrieval in a secured approach, has been developed to support the rapidly
Tuesday, 16 May Methodology
growing demand from various clinical specialties.
A feasibility study was conducted in four major acute hospitals during 2013/14 to review service needs, and explore
technology standard and IT infrastructure requirement to support operations. The project officially commenced in 2015/16
with development of the three-level technology standard.
Governance structure was set up at both Head Office (HO) and cluster levels to facilitate project preparation and
implementation. At HO level, the Project Steering Committee leads and advises on the overall direction including project
planning, implementation, and monitoring. HO project team takes a central coordination role in project planning and
progress monitoring; and collaborates with Coordinating Committees (COCs), other HO departments and cluster teams in
project tasks, e.g. technical support, training and risk mitigation measures. At cluster level, local project teams collect user
requirements and feedbacks, submit implementation plan, monitor deliverables and report to local governance.

Results
About 240 sets of viewing equipment and 370 image processing systems will be installed upon Project completion in March
2018. Enhancement of the central, corporate-wide radiology image storage enabled a streamlined and automated workflow
in image request and retrieval. Besides, it helped mitigate the potential risk of losing patient data due to the use of removable
storage devices in the past. Clinicians are positive about this robust pre-operative planning workflow model as they can
virtually see or simulate operations with facilitation of radiology images. A sustainable specialty-based training is important
in continuous quality improvement, HA therefore rests upon respective COCs’ contribution and coordination to meet their
specific clinical application needs.

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