Welsh health minister Edwina Hart has given the go-ahead for the Welsh Clinical Portal, a secure online workspace for Welsh health staff.
The move has been backed by £2.5m, and follows the approval of the business case for the patient portal, My Health Online, last week.
The Welsh Clinical Portal is intended to display patient information from a number of computer systems and databases in use in Wales, give healthcare staff access to a personalised workspace with their own patient lists, and allow them to order tests and view results.
It is being developed in phases, with the first phase allowing doctors to view general patient information, order and review pathology results. This phase has already been piloted at some hospitals.
Hart said: “Getting to the final product will be a step by step process. As each stage of the design and development is completed it will be rolled out across Wales, so any lessons can be learned and acted upon and benefits seen quickly.”
The Welsh Assembly Government argues the portal will also enable NHS Wales to develop new information services to help it make better use of its existing resources and cut the training needed by staff when they move between hospitals.
Link: Informing Healthcare.