CANTERBURY DHB QUALITY & PATIENT SAFETY COUNCIL

2004 New Zealand Health Innovation Awards

The 2004 New Zealand Health Innovation Awards Ceremony was held on the 14th June 2004 in Wellington.

A fast system for reporting the FM 100-Hue colour vision test

Doctors and nurses from Christchurch Hospital's ophthalmology team have slashed the time it takes to complete the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue colour vision test.

The test is useful for diagnosing early stages of acquired colour vision defects in the optic nerve, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma.

It requires the patient to arrange 85 coloured caps so that their hue changes progressively through the colours of the spectrum. Once the patient has finished, the operator had to turn the caps over, record the numbers on their reverse side and then manually calculate an error score for each individual cap. These individual errors are then plotted on a polar graph.

This process was very labour intensive in an area where staff time was at a premium.

The solution was ingeniously simple - replace the numbers on the caps with bar code so the order of the caps could then be recorded with a hand-held bar code scanner.

A computer then calculates the error score of each cap and plots it so it can be interpreted by an ophthalmologist.

The system has been in routine use in eye clinics at Christchurch Hospital for more than a year and has eliminated arithmetic errors as well as saving time.

It produces two reports, one for each eye, in four minutes, compared with 60 minutes required by the conventional manual reporting system.

The Ophthalmology team won the 'Supreme Award' at the inaugural 2003 Canterbury DHB Quality and Innovation Awards. Contact: Dr Rudy Hidajat