«Technical difficulties already taken care of by the manager». The recipe software doesn’t work and the waiting times for visits become longer.
The health company explains why and how it is taking action. Lorenzo Rossi, Government Director of Information Systems at the Ausl Romagna, takes stock of the problem that involves all the family doctors of Rimini and the patients.
Could Rossi tell us the name, origin and characteristics of the software currently in use?
«The software in use by almost all general practitioners in the province of Rimini (Cartella SOLE) was created by the Emilia Romagna Region, through the House company Lepida ScpA with the aim of overcoming the fragmentation of existing IT solutions on the regional territory, in order to simplify the management of the ever-increasing integrations between local, regional and national systems that the need to have “connected” healthcare entails”.
What causes the frequent blockages of computer records complained of by family doctors in Rimini? A doctor says that in the last 36 months he has noted 49 system blocks, do you know?
«The platform is managed at a regional level and it is not always easy to have evidence of the causes of blockages or slowdowns, as well as problems on the Lepida ScpA systems, on several occasions the problem is caused by malfunctions in the centralized management at national level of the dematerialized prescription, which have repercussions both on GPs, preventing them from proceeding with the issuing of prescriptions (drugs or services), and on the activity of the Local Health Authority regarding the patient acceptance/booking phase or issuing prescriptions. These problems do not only involve doctors who use the SOLE folder, but also users of other folders.”
Will the mix-up last much longer?
«The Local Health Authority, in recent months, has already reported the problems detected by the GPs in Lepida. We understand that measures and interventions have been implemented in order to remedy the inefficiencies.”
How could the inconveniences be overcome? And again: a doctor said that the previous software allowed working offline, can this solution be applied? Or do I need to buy other software? In this case would it be free, like the current one, or paid for by doctors?
«The constant increase in IT integrations between the systems used by GPs and the entire regional and national healthcare IT ecosystem makes it increasingly difficult to think of “offline” working methods, except with very limited functionality. From what we understand, GPs still have the possibility of adopting solutions other than the SOLE Folder. In this case the costs of acquiring the new folder and the update and maintenance services are borne by them: Similarly, the costs of the hardware, PCs and printers are also borne by them”.
What are the advantages of this program chosen seven years ago?
«The adoption of a regional solution, which was born integrated with the architecture of the entire SOLE project and evolves together with it in order to guarantee ever greater integration between the Hospital and the Territory, was evaluated positively compared to the previous experience of integration of the various computer folders present in the area, managed by various supplier companies. The partial diffusion of the SOLE Folder among GPs (to date we find it used by just over 50% of doctors) has certainly reduced these advantages”.
