Background The South Island Alliance (SIA) strives for innovative and efficient health services by bringing together the five South Island District Health Boards (DHBs) to work collaboratively. ACP is a focus area for the SIA leadership team. The Health of Older People Service Alliance has been endorsed to provide oversight and leadership to support SI DHBs develop and embed electronic Advance Care Plans (eACPlans).

Methods a four step approach

Step 1 – Systems development: The creation of a single ACP platform in the electronic medical record enabling eACPlans to be created, shared and viewed across services and systems throughout the region.

Step 2 - Quality processes: A South Island Regional quality Verification (SIRV) team has been established to implement the SIRV processes and ensure the content of SI eACPlans, are clinically interpretable and can be confidently used by clinicians to guide care and ensure patient wishes are honoured.

Step 3 – Implementation support: Development of a regional workbook, communication releases & clinical pathway. Regular teleconference meetings are held to provide a platform for DHB ACP leads and SIRV team members to share ideas and develop ‘broadly similar’ approaches to support the roll out of the eACP.

Step 4 – Regional measures and reports:

Results Steps 1,2 & 3 have been implemented and the coordinated ‘go live’ date for the project has been agreed by the 5 DHBs for early December 2018.

Conclusion(s) Regional implementation of eACP in the SI is helping to optimise efficiency and encourage a broadly similar approach.