The electronic Patient Report Form (ePRF) system makes Ambulance Care Summaries (ACS) available digitally, ensuring a smooth handover from emergency ambulances to secondary care.

Getting notified of inbound emergency ambulances

Two paramedics in the front of an ambulance

The Arrivals Board lists all ambulances heading towards a secondary care facility, with estimated arrival times and details of each patient. Your facility can choose to receive this information digitally, in real time.  The information can then be displayed on computers, screens and tablets. To retrieve a patient’s ACS, click on the patient’s chief complaint on the Arrivals Board.  

Digital Arrivals Boards can show any ambulance that transferred a patient in the last 24 hours. This is helpful if you need further information from the ambulance crew, to retrieve an incomplete ACS (if it was done manually), or if the patient has left belongings in the ambulance.   

You can access the Arrivals Board through eTriage.eacc.org.nz 

You’ll need a Connected Health Network connection and the credentials that we gave you.

 Arrivals Board

How to access an ACS from your clinical workstation

At patient handover, one of your staff will check the patient’s identity and NHI number with the ambulance officer, then they’ll finalise the record on their tablet. The ACS lives in our ePRF system, and if your Clinical Workstation (CWS) has been set up, you’ll be able to access the patient records you need. 

The ACS will be available for months after the point of care for clinical coding, and in outpatient clinics. 

If your CWS hasn’t been configured, download the instructions below. You’ll also need us to grant your organisation access – contact your representative to arrange this.


 Download instructions

How to retrieve the ACS if you can’t access it through the clinical workstation

From the ACS website 

Ambulance and hospital staff can access the ACS through eTriage. You’ll need the ACS access code and the patient’s date of birth. This will have been recorded on the ambulance officer’s tablet.

 ACCESS AN ACS

From the Arrivals Board 

If your organisation is using the Arrivals Board, you can retrieve the ACS for up to 24 hours after the patient arrives.

 ACCESS The Arrivals Board

What to do with a handwritten ACS

If the ePRF system is unavailable or isn’t working, the ambulance officers will complete and deliver a handwritten clinical record. Hold onto the paper copy but keep an eye out for the record to become available in your CWS, once the ambulance officers have been able to update the ePRF. 

Questions

I can’t access any ACS from my Clinical Workstation

This could be because of: 

  • A network issue: something has happened to cause the Connected Health Network connection between your organisation and us to become unavailable.
  • A system outage: One of the system components is non-functional. This could be a CWS or a Hato Hone St John issue. If this is an unscheduled outage, contact your IT help desk.
  • If the ambulance system isn’t operational, ambulance officers will produce handwritten ACS.
I can’t retrieve an ACS from the ACS website

There are three likely reasons: 

  • The site behaves strangely: If the layout is scrambled or the browser terminates, clear your browser’s cache and try again. 
  • The site gives the error message: “No record exists against provided Ambulance Care Summary Access Code”. This could be because the ambulance officer incorrectly recorded the patient’s date of birth. Use the recorded date of birth, even if it’s wrong.

 

An ACS doesn’t show on my Clinical Workstation

If an individual ACS doesn’t show on your CWS, it could be one of three reasons: 

The ambulance was called away for a high acuity case before the ACS was completed: The ambulance crew will complete the ACS as soon as possible and it will appear in the CWS. In the meantime, you can retrieve the incomplete ACS through the Arrivals Board. 

The wrong NHI number was recorded: The record can still be retrieved through the Arrivals Board. Please contact your Hato Hone St John Representative to have the NHI number corrected. As soon as this is done, the ACS will be accessible. 

The ACS was handwritten: The ambulance system was unavailable, so the record was handwritten. This will be entered into the ePRF system later and will become accessible through the CWS. In the meantime, hold onto the paper copy.

I’d like to speak to someone

If you need any assistance, please contact our Referrals Coordinator by email or by phoning 0800 ST JOHN (0800 473 876).

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