The Clinical Information Access Portal (CIAP) provides information and resources to support evidence-based practice at the point of care. CIAP is available to all nurses, midwives, doctors, allied health, community health, and ancillary staff working in or for NSW public health system including students while on clinical placement in a NSW Health public hospital. CIAP can be accessed from work or from home.

The goal of CIAP is to improve access to decision support, support evidence-based healthcare, reduce adverse events, improve clinical knowledge, and improve communications between clinician groups.

Background

In 1996, the Clinical Systems Reference Group (CSRG) defined the information requirements for clinicians at the point of care. Identified was the need for decision support information to meet the information requirements of clinicians. The NSW Health Department’s CSRG recommended that funding be provided to initiate a website of clinical information to be called the Clinical Information Access Portal (CIAP).

Benefits of CIAP

CIAP provides many benefits in the areas of clinical, administrative, research, and education including:

  • Provides clinicians with information to support patient care processes and enhance clinical decision making
  • Improves accuracy and appropriateness of clinical decisions by improved access to decision support information
  • Lessens patient morbidity and mortality by using best practice evidence and diagnostic standards
  • Enables information to be accessed 24 hours a day corresponding with clinical practice
  • Improves clinician productivity as more rapid access to authoritative information in a single place saves time
  • Enables information to be updated in one location delivering timely and correct information to the user
  • Saves on expenditure as licence costs can be shared statewide
  • Supports research by enabling access to relevant databases, e.g. Medline, Embase
  • Provides clinical information access for clinicians in rural and remote areas.