The numbers behind Cortex

Claims about clinical software are easy to make. So when Cortex was rolled out across the interdisciplinary team at Christchurch Hospital, the outcomes were measured independently by Lightfoot Solutions, commissioned by the Canterbury DHB, not by us.

What they found: a 20% reduction in average length of stay, a 12% decrease in readmission rates, and a 15% reduction in total bed nights.

David Meates, Canterbury DHB’s Chief Executive from 2009 to 2020, put it this way in his foreword to the Cortex Innovation Case Study: “Ward rounds have been transformed with decisions made and tests activated at the bedside in real time. I have not seen a comparable solution anywhere.”

Those results came from a simple idea, applied stubbornly for fifteen years: build tools clinicians actually want to use, and the documentation, coordination, and data follow. Cortex now runs across every specialty and discipline at Health New Zealand hospitals in Canterbury and on the West Coast, spanning tertiary, rehabilitation, rural, and community settings. The platform has managed more than 2 million clinical tasks, 16 million clinical documents, and records for over 1 million patients.

If you’d like to see what that looks like in practice, get in touch.