Hobart’s HealthCare Software (HCS) has worked with Ambulance Tasmania to roll out its controlled drug management (CDM) solution for pre-hospital and emergency services across the state.

The CDM solution, which is also used by Ambulance Victoria and St John Ambulance in WA, is now being marketed to ambulance services in the UK and Ireland through a distribution agreement with Swedish-based pre-hospital specialist Ortivus.

The solution replaces the paper-based registers for Schedule 8 drugs that many ambulance services still use, which are prone to error, are difficult to reconcile and can be administratively burdensome.

HCS chief clinical information officer and company cofounder John Elkerton said ambulance services are required by law to keep a register of controlled drugs, recording their use and any update to the transfer, administration and supply of the medications.

HCS worked initially with Ambulance Victoria to design the system specifically for pre-hospital paramedic services, whose requirements are different to those for community pharmacies or veterinary or hospital applications.

“Paramedics want this sort of system because it reduces their non-patient-facing workflow,” he said.

“It can be so time-consuming to enter information manually. When you first start your shift, you’ve already got your first case, and you spend five minutes getting the medicines out of the safe to transfer to the ambulance along with all the legislated documentation.

“The drugs are checked out to the individual paramedics and to the ambulance those paramedics are on. You may use one or two ampules over the course of your shift, and then you have to check them all back in.”

“This system allows you to do that sort of reconciliation and instant reporting. It also includes things like stock checks and incident creation, along with audits and supply chain functionalities.”

HCS CEO Rich Metcalfe said the system is highly configurable, as each ambulance service has its own different workflows and different rules around what they can do with medications that need to be discarded, for example.

The system can be used as a standalone solution, but it can also integrate with a customer’s Microsoft Entra, and has potential for multiple integrations if the third-party systems are capable.

Some ambulance services have integrated to their rostering systems while others are integrating it with ambulance electronic patient care record (ePCR) solutions, particularly to streamline the link to patient case numbers.

“Our solution does not carry significant detail on the patient’s personal information, as that’s not the appropriate place for it,” Mr Metcalfe said.

“The appropriate place is the ePCR. But for some of our customers, we’ll link that case number so they can do downstream reporting to see exactly what’s happening between cases and what drugs were administered during the course of managing that case.”

Ambulance Tasmania went live with the solution just before Christmas last year, and so successful has the roll-out been that Ambulance Tasmania recently won a TasICT award for Best ICT application for ATOMS (Ambulance Tasmania Online Medication System), as it is known.

HCS has also since asked Ambulance Tasmania’s project officer Michelle McLeod to join the company as Senior Project Officer to strengthen HCS’ project delivery capability.

Now the company is setting its sights on the international market, in addition to some of the other states in Australia that don’t have an electronic controlled drugs register.

Mr Metcalfe said both the UK and Ireland have different requirements, but both countries are increasingly looking at digital systems to help meet quality and safety accreditation standards.

“The UK has a Care Quality Commission that inspects services on an annual basis, and some of them are getting bad marks for their medication management procedures,” he said.

“There’s just one ambulance service in Australia that is accredited with the national quality and safety standards. As services work through accreditation, more of them are realising the value that digitising the records will bring for them.

“We are also talking to some of the provinces in Canada. All these countries have similar legislation and the same problems as we see in Australia.”

HCS will be exhibiting the controlled drug register at the upcoming Council of Ambulance Authorities (CAA) Congress, where there will also be a great deal of interest in electronic patient care records.

Many of the states are currently in the process of procuring new patient care and medication management systems, which Mr Elkerton said was related to the desire to achieve accreditation.

The CAA Congress is being held from August 14 to 16 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.