20/08/2026
We're saying goodbye to paper notes for patients in Timaru Hospital. When you next visit, you may notice our nurses, junior and senior doctors all walking around with ipads in their hands. It's because we're now paperless note-taking.
So many extra benefits, from clinical staff having access to lab results and other tests in real time, an entire care team being able to see patient information at once, instead of waiting until they have paper notes in front of them, and clinicians being able to update care plans and other clinical notes at the patient's bedside.
The platform is called Cortex. It was developed right here in the South Island. It is in use in Christchurch and Ashburton, and there are plans to eventually roll it out across the rest of Te Waipounamu.
Over the last week, our implementation team has spent a lot of time in the hospital getting everyone onboarded. This follows over six months of preparatory work by numerous teams to ensure the hospital's operational readiness to incorporate the new digital tool.
Patients will benefit from quicker bedside decisions, shorter hospital stays, and fewer complications, with all their information instantly available to everyone in their care team.
