About the staff

The Clinical Application Support Unit (CASU) is a department within the Division of Information Services, established in July 1999, to provide expert knowledge and support to users of clinical systems. Also included in the division are the departments of Information Technology (IT), Medical Records and Switchboard. Whereas the IT support staff focus on assisting computer users with technical issues involving computers, printers and applications including the Microsoft Office tools, CASU staff focus primarily on the clinical and related applications, including: PowerChart, Discharge Summary; Patient Management; Scheduling; Tracking and Coding.

In line with the Department of Health strategy, CASU are working towards an Electronic Medical Record (eMR) for The Children's Hospital at Westmead (CHW), the major focus being the transition to a paperless medical record and improvement in patient care through immediate access to clinical information. CASU staff work with clinical users to bring together patient information into one central clinical system, the eMR PowerChart is the clinical tool, produced by the Cerner Corporation, which is integrated with several other applications that share the one patient demographic repository, including: Patient Management; Scheduling; Tracking and Coding. This is the system chosen by NSW Health to be implemented across NSW public hospitals. All the Cerner applications are supported by CASU.

The staff that make up CASU come from a variety of backgrounds, including: clinical; nursing; scientific; and financial. The skill mix and experience of the CASU staff enable them to support staff from multitudinal areas, as they understand the roles of the staff they are liaising with. In many cases they have worked in similar capacities and have a solid understanding of systems and work flow.

For example, the CASU manager has a degree in speech pathology and worked as a clinician for nine years before assuming a role as Local IT Coordinator for NSW Health, involving 13 projects. As CASU manager the major focus is to support the implementation of the electronic medical record and provide workplace support to clinicians.

There are two skilled computer programmers whose roles include: system maintenance; system upgrades; interfacing; and SQL scripting. Their qualifications comprise: Pathology Technician's Certificate; Bachelor of Science (Biomedical); and Bachelor of Business (Computing). Their backgrounds encompass 15 years experience with Cerner applications, as well as the following roles: Laboratory Technical officer; a Laboratory Scientific Officer and Laboratory Systems Administrator; Laboratory/Radiology Systems Administrator for the implementation of PathNet and PowerChart results; installation of Cerner's electronic ordering of Pathology tests and Medical Imaging procedures; implementation of Patient Management.

The primary staff involved with supporting PowerChart have a Biomedical/Health Information background. Experience includes working as a laboratory scientist/manager before focusing on information management, which is a great asset in understanding and supporting the information flow from PowerChart and Pathnet. Having ten years experience in Cerner applications as well as a scientific background is the ideal combination to engage in business analysis, system implementation and clinical support.

There are four principal application specialists who support Patient Management, Scheduling and data quality and reporting. Their background covers: nursing management; finance; medical records; IT support and training in administrative and clinical systems; health information management; and computing and information systems. Their experience is very broad and includes experience with the following: PowerChart; Picture Archival Communications (PACS); operating room management system implementations; emergency department, scheduling and patient administration; data management in endocrinology, theatres and clinical trials; casemix; administration; and scheduling implementation. These application specialists have a detailed knowledge of the main business processes of the hospital, and together with their diverse wealth of experience are well qualified to support these applications.

Staff currently working on the Medication Management project include Registered Nurses, with operating room and emergency experience. These staff have qualifications in Management for Health Care Professionals and Bachelor Health Service Management (Operational and Information Management). They have managed Operating Theatres; worked as Evening Duty Supervisors and held senior nursing management roles. As well as nursing positions, they have worked in IT in client support consultancies; data management, project management, business analysis; implementation management of Patient Management; as well as in NSW Health (Operations Manager, Community Healthcare & Telehealth Strategy; Radiotherapy Information Strategy: and the Community Health Information Management Exchange (CHIME)).