Now family doctors can easily get information about their patients’ medical test results as an initiative is being adopted by the local district health board in the Canterbury region.

Hospital doctors and nurses will have an access to patient laboratory results on a secure DHB database, the TestSafe South initiative, being introduced by the Canterbury District Health Board, will enable this.

This access would give family doctors an insight about care of their patients at hospitals.

The system would be secure however, if the patients want they can opt out if they want, the district health board says.

This would boost care and the number of blood and other samples needing to be taken would be reduced.

The system is already being used by the Auckland health boards and plan to expand it to include medicines is also in the pipeline.

Canterbury DHB chief medical officer Nigel Millar said, “Doctors and nurses in the region only have a portion of the blood results available to them currently, and this can prove difficult, especially in an urgent situation.”