St John of God Midland opens on time and budget with Emerging EMR

The $360 million St John of God Midland Public and Private Hospitals have opened on time, on budget and with the minimum of fuss in Perth’s east, taking the place of the aged Swan District Hospital and offering new services to the region such as day oncology and a high-dependency coronary care unit.

It will also serve as a testbed for the roll-out of Emerging Systems’ EHS clinical information system to other St John of God hospitals around the country and will link to both the national My Health Record (MyHR, formerly PCEHR) and WA Health’s internal systems, with secure messaging of discharge summaries to local GPs also high on the priority list.

The hospital campus is a public private partnership between St John of God Health Care and the state and federal governments, with the governments putting in $180m each for the 307-bed public hospital and St John of God funding the 60-bed private hospital. The two hospitals are integrated rather than just co-located, sharing all back office functions, operating theatres and ICU but with separate medical wards and private consultants’ suites.

In addition to general medical services, specialties, geriatrics, rehabilitation and acting as one of the three main stroke units for Perth, the new hospital will offer ambulatory care, maternity and neonatology, and has a large emergency department. New services that have not before been available to the area from a general hospital include a high-dependency coronary care unit and day oncology services to the region.

A St John of God spokesperson told the IQPC Australian Healthcare Week conference earlier this year that the hospital would open with a scanning solution and the clinical information system (CIS) from Emerging Systems, now owned by Telstra Health. While the organisation has a suite of preferred systems that it uses throughout its 15 other hospitals, before last year it had not had a preferred CIS or EMR.

Emerging Systems was chosen as the preferred vendor in 2014 and the plan is to test drive it at Midland before potentially rolling it out to the other hospitals, including the 555-bed St John of God Subiaco Hospital. The solution was first developed by St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Sydney and is used by a number of hospitals in the St Vincent’s Health group.

As part of the PPP, St John of God has to fulfil a number of interoperability requirements from the state government. It will be required to send a discharge summary or an episode of care summary to the MyHR as well as out to local GPs, and WA Health will have access to its pathology and radiology results.

It is also required to use the Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI), which will link back to WA Health’s master patient index, and to integrate the CIS with the webPAS patient administration system from CSC, which is being rolled out statewide.

Key functionality in the new system includes patient lists, orders and results, referrals, allied health, patient activity data, alerts and allergies, clinical messages, patient assessments and care plans, discharge summaries, ED summaries, outpatient letters and nursing discharge letters.

Emerging’s EHS is a mobile-ready system, and will be accessed at St John of God Midland on workstations on wheels, iPads and other tablets. Role-based messaging between nursing, allied health and medical staff task lists will also be implemented.

Emerging Systems managing director Russel Duncan said the system was unique in that it has been built in Australia for Australian hospitals.

“Our product reflects existing work practices and is easy for staff to use, including tablet device compatibility,” Mr Duncan said in a statement.

He said that the solution was a fully integrated electronic medical record, meeting all the needs of both the public and private hospital environment.

“We know the importance of integration and interoperability in the success of eHealth solutions. Patients’ clinical data at the St John of God Midland Public and Private Hospitals will integrate seamlessly with the hospital’s patient administration system, the national My Health Record system and eventually the Western Australia Health Department, helping build a more connected health system and improve productivity and clinical care.”

St John of God Health Care group director of corporate services Kevin Taylor said the system was selected after a comprehensive selection process that rewarded the ability to have data highly available in an interoperable environment.

“We have a very clear expectation that the Emerging solution will lead to efficiency and accountability and will be a major system which will enable us to interconnect with the Western Australian government’s health services through expedient data sharing,” Mr Taylor said in a statement.

“The Emerging product delivers benefits for everyone involved in the hospital; patients, staff and administrators. We get a great system from Telstra Health that is built for Australian conditions, makes it easier for staff to do their job, delivers enhanced clinical care and patient outcomes, and does it in a way that is affordable and sustainable.

“By choosing an Australian EMR platform we can deliver better continuity of care for patients. A unique factor is the way we can easily notify general practitioners when one of their patients is admitted, when they are discharged and deliver a secure discharge summary of what treatment and condition they have been seen for. The doctors we have spoken to are very pleased with this integration.”

Orion launches long-term release of Rhapsody with added FHIR power

Orion Health has released version 6.2 of its Rhapsody integration engine, promising simplified workflows and improved performance as well as building on the FHIR capabilities introduced in Rhapsody 6.1.

Orion Health said v6.2 was a long-term release and will be supported for a number of years into the future.

v6.1 was the first integration engine to implement the new HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard. v6.2 features improved JSON and HTTP Rest support within its routes, enabling organisations to use these generically and to start implementing FHIR-based interfaces.

Orion Health product strategist and co-chair of the FHIR management group David Hay said FHIR is sparking innovation in health information sharing.

“It is focused on decreasing interoperability costs and unlocking software innovation in healthcare,” Dr Hay said. “We are proud to be helping to lead the industry with the first-ever integration engine support for this groundbreaking new standard.

“In addition to FHIR support, our work on this latest version of Rhapsody 6.2 has focused on delivering tools to support the implementers in healthcare organisations who are constantly challenged to bring together data from more systems, devices, facilities and organisations every day.”

Features of v6.2 include an enhancement to the product’s dashboard to provide at-a-glance monitoring via multiple channels such as tablet, smart phone and monitor. Key health indicators are clearly displayed, showing the health of all Rhapsody environments.

The management console has been improved, with new features to help customers monitor and maintain a healthy Rhapsody deployment. Searching, browsing and navigating for information is now faster and easier, Orion says.

The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) has been upgraded to Java 8 across all Rhapsody components for all supported platforms, achieving an estimated 15 per cent improvement in performance.

David Leach, senior vice president for Orion Health’s Intelligent Integration, said Rhapsody 6.2 would enable users to work smarter by providing simplified and streamlined workflows which reduce the time spent with ongoing monitoring and maintenance.

“We are seeing a huge increase in the amount and source of data as such genomics and personal health collection devices become more prevalent,” Mr Leach said. “This puts huge demands on health information integration professionals and Orion Health is committed to ensuring they have the tools, to enable their organisations to have robust access to accurate and comprehensive data.”

No complaints here: OAIC reports on PCEHR data breaches

No complaints were made to the independent overseer about the PCEHR system or the Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service in the 2014-15 financial year, although it did receive seven mandatory data breach notifications, mostly concerned with “intertwined” Medicare records, during the period.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) has released its annual report into its activities in relation to eHealth for the 2014-15 year in its role as the independent regulator of the privacy aspects of the PCEHR system and HI Service, which it collectively calls the eHealth system.

The office, which the federal government wants to shut down, has been hit by severe budget cuts since last year and saw the former Information Commissioner John McMillan reduced to part-time hours in 2014 before his resignation to become the NSW Ombudsman in June.

Professor McMillan’s responsibilities are now being handled by the Privacy Commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim. The office also lost its Freedom of Information Commissioner in December last year, who also has not been replaced. The government still plans to attempt to move the Privacy Commissioner to the Human Rights Commission and some other responsibilities to the Attorney-General’s Department.

Mr Pilgrim reports that during the year, the OAIC provided advice to the Department of Health on privacy aspects of proposed changes to the PCEHR Act and HI Act as part of the government’s decision to trial the use of opt-out participation arrangements.

Two consumers contacted the office during the year to inquire about opting out of the system, seemingly under the impression that they had already been introduced, the commissioner said.

As the office didn’t receive any complaints about the PCEHR system in 2014-15, the commissioner didn’t undertake any investigations or enforcement action. However, it did commence three privacy assessments and finalise five relating to the PCEHR system, four from the previous reporting period.

The assessments included one into the Western Sydney Medicare Local’s (WSML) assisted registration practices and two into the Department of Health’s procedures for the collection of personal information during consumer registration and the storage and security of personal information held in the National Repositories Service (NRS).

It also did two assessments of access controls for staff – one for St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney and one for seven GP clinics (see below).

It also commenced an assessment of privacy policies of 40 GP clinics selected at random to assess whether the policies reflected the clinics’ use of the eHealth system and individual HIs. This assessment was still in progress on June 30, the commissioner reported.

In terms of mandatory data breach notifications, seven were made, with six from the Department of Human Services (DHS) about intertwined Medicare records and one from the system operator, the Department of Health (DoH).

The commissioner describes ‘intertwined’ Medicare records as two consumers sharing the same Medicare record by error.

“In each of the notified cases, one of the two consumers holding the intertwined Medicare record created an eHealth record and caused the Medicare Benefits Scheme and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme data of both consumers to be uploaded from the Medicare record to that eHealth record,” the commissioner reports.

The OAIC considered the matter and said it was satisfied with DHS’s actions in resolving it.

The other data breach involved consumers logging into their MyGov account and using their identity verification code to access their own PCEHR.

“In some instances, they also set up access to another consumer’s PCEHR while they were still logged into the same MyGov account,” the commissioner reported. “This caused the first consumer’s PCEHR landing page to show two ‘Open your eHealth record’ buttons, which provides links to open both consumers’ PCEHRs.”

The commissioner reports that his office made a series of recommendations to reduce the risk of a future breach of this type, which the department is now implementing.

The office also said it had liaised with the Department of Health over the planned pathology and diagnostic imaging functionality for the PCEHR system.

It is also planning to develop web-based smart forms for easier data breach reporting, which it hopes to release this financial year.

GP security assessments

Assessors from the office also undertook a survey of seven general practices during the year to look at whether they were following the PCEHR rules concerning access control mechanisms for staff and other security arrangements.

Of the seven, the assessors found one ‘high risk’ example in which a clinic was not following the requirements of the PCEHR rules in having a written policy on how it authorised people to access the PCEHR.

It also found a medium risk that the other six may not be properly addressing the requirements of that rule.

There was also a risk that unauthorised access to the system was possible because passwords weren’t being regularly reviewed or weren’t strong enough.

The assessors also mentioned a risk with the access code that patients can give their GPs to unlock certain documents on their records. None of the practices had a written policy for handling the disposal of these codes.

All of the practices also faced a risk that non-clinical staff may access the PCEHR, particularly through unattended computers.

The OAIC made a number of recommendations, including that each practice review and update policies and procedures to ensure written policies clearly set out the current security controls and procedures for accessing the eHealth system.

Practice managers and practices principals are also advised to review the eHealth policy annually to ensure it is relevant and accurate.

They should also include a process for destroying eHealth system document and record codes, and record the different levels of individual staff access to all of their ICT systems, including the PCEHR.

It recommends they should consider restricting access to users of the PCEHR, change screensaver settings on computers, and conduct regular and ongoing privacy and eHealth system access training.

Medtech set to expand ManageMyHealth business in US market

Auckland-headquartered practice management software vendor Medtech Global is set to expand its presence in the US market for its ManageMyHealth portal technology following the acquisition of the remaining shares in Colorado healthcare cost containment firm ConSova Corporation.

While the price of the acquisition was not disclosed, Medtech Global bought a 51 per cent majority interest in ConSova in 2012 for over $US650,000.

ConSova brought in about $A2 million a year for ASX-listed Medtech Global in that year, the company’s 2013 annual report shows, for a net profit after tax of about $A50,000. The company also sells its VitelMed telehealth solutions in the US through its Medtech Global USA arm.

Total revenue from the US in 2015 was $4,165,000 out of its overall revenues of $19,523,000, the majority of which comes from its dominant position in the New Zealand PMS market.

Medtech Global executive chairman Vino Ramayah said ManageMyHealth had already been trialled and customised for the US market.

“ConSova has well established relationships with large US healthcare organisations like Kaiser Permanente and Cigna and it also provides solutions and services to major employers, some of whom are Fortune 500 companies in respect to health benefits management,” Mr Ramayah said in a statement.

ConSova will now act as a wholly owned subsidiary of Medtech Global USA. The company funded the acquisition from its own resources.

“With offices in Denver, Colorado and Nashville in Tennessee, Consova gives us immediate access to emerging healthcare innovation centres,” Mr Ramayah said. “It provides us with an exciting platform for growth in the largest healthcare market in the world.”

ManageMyHealth was created in Auckland and is being progressively rolled out in many general practices – particularly in New Zealand where it has an estimated 85 per cent share of the GP market but also in Australia – that use the Medtech32 PMS and its cloud-based replacement Evolution.

The portal allows practices to provide selective access to patients to their medical records and to book appointments, request repeat prescriptions and view their lab results online.

Medical practices can also use it to communicate with patients and securely share patient medical information with after-hours, emergency and other primary care clinicians.

Mr Ramayah said he will lead a team of veteran industry experts at ConSova as its interim CEO and chairman.

Cerner EMM win for Concord Hospital heralds statewide roll-out

The implementation of Cerner’s electronic medications management (EMM) module at Concord Hospital in Sydney picked up the NSW Minister for Health’s top award for innovation on Monday, heralding the beginning of the statewide roll-out of EMM in 28 major hospitals over the next few years.

Concord Hospital has been extensively trialling EMM in its aged care wards and began a hospital-wide roll-out in May, completing the project at the Concord Centre for Mental Health in August.

EMM has also been trialled and is now being rolled out at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead and Prince of Wales Hospital. According to eHealth NSW, six other sites are now on the radar for the roll-out.

At the NSW Health Awards, Health Minister Jillian Skinner said she was inspired by clinicians and support staff who are developing and implementing innovative models of care for their patients.

“Many of them are represented at this year’s awards but this medication system is a standout for me,” Ms Skinner said in a statement.

“When I visited Concord Hospital to witness it in operation, I was struck by the overwhelmingly positive response of staff. But, more than that, I saw the implications for the whole of health when it is replicated across the state.”

The roll-out at Concord is part of a 10-year, $170 million program for EMM in NSW, first announced by Ms Skinner in 2011. Earlier this year, Cerner was chosen as the vendor for the major part of the roll-out, aligning EMM with the state’s plans to implement Cerner’s EMR in many NSW hospitals.

Those health and hospital networks using an Orion EMR, namely Hunter New England and the Justice and Forensic Mental Health Network, have been provided with “an alternative path” to secure a suitable EMM vendor partner.

The main rival to Cerner’s EMM system in NSW, CSC’s MedChart, is understood to be a contender for these projects. MedChart has been used at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney for some years.

The Paper-Lite project at Blacktown Hospital was named as a finalist in the local solutions category of the awards.

International health IT week in review: October 4

Pulse+IT’s weekly weekend round-up of international health IT and eHealth news:

NHS Number use becomes law
Digital Health News ~ Rebecca McBeth ~ 01/10/2015

The NHS Number must be used as a single patient identifier across the health and social care system, under a new law which comes into effect today.


Meaningful Use program seen interfering with EHR interoperability
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 01/10/2015

The federal government’s Meaningful Use program is hindering, not helping, private sector efforts aimed at enabling nationwide electronic health record interoperability.


GP2GP allows large file transfer
Digital Health News ~ Rebecca McBeth ~ 01/10/2015

Large patient record files can be sent electronically between GP practices with the launch of the latest version of GP2GP.


WEDI to keep ICD-10 issue reporting tool live post-Oct. 1; CMS will monitor switch in real time
FierceHealthIT ~ Katie Dvorak ~ 01/10/2015

ICD-10 D-Day is here, and the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) says its searchable ICD-10 Issue Reporting Database will be available after the transition.


AHIMA takes on patient identifier
HealthcareITNews ~ Bernie Monegain ~ 01/10/2015

The need for healthcare systems to exchange patient information quickly, affordably and safely makes a national patient-matching program critical, say AHIMA leaders


How many intrusion attempts does VA get each month?
HealthcareITNews ~ Erin McCann ~ 30/09/2015

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which operates some 1,700 hospitals and healthcare facilities, reported more than 235 million blocked intrusion attempts just for the month of August.


No EHR? Paper records create dangerous voids in care coordination
HealthcareITNews ~ Jack McCarthy ~ 30/09/2015

Many patients are growing increasingly impatient with the progress their doctors are making in adopting digital tools and they’re exasperated by the demands placed on them to be responsible for mounds of paperwork.


Docs lament ‘all-or-nothing’ MU compliance standard at second AMA town hall
FierceEMR ~ Marla Durben Hirsch ~ 30/09/2015

The American Medical Association (AMA) continued its effort to reshape the Meaningful Use program, holding a second town hall meeting Sept. 29 to enable physicians to share their suggestions and experiences.


NHS England backs IT leader networks
Digital Health News ~ Jon Hoeksma ~ 29/09/2015

NHS England is supporting the continued development of the Chief Clinical Information Officer and Health Chief Information Officer Networks, pioneering best practice and collaboration communities for NHS digital leaders.


Survey: Americans want providers who are more digitally connected
FierceHealthIT ~ Katie Dvorak ~ 29/09/2015

Americans are clamoring for doctors who are more digitally connected, and are more frustrated with paperwork and customer service in the healthcare industry than banks, auto dealerships, cellphone companies and others, a new survey finds.


Telehealth projects target diabetes, mental health and kidney failure
Canadian Healthcare Technology ~ Staff writer ~ 29/09/2015

The Ontario Telemedicine Network (OTN) has launched three new demonstration projects this fall under its “Home is the Hub” umbrella.


Innovative eShift platform helps nurses monitor home-care patients
Canadian Healthcare Technology ~ Jerry Zeidenberg ~ 29/09/2015

Using an innovative, web-based technology, a large portion of southwestern Ontario has been able to use a new model of care for complex pediatric and palliative patients in their homes.


Open source EHR live at Taunton
Digital Health News ~ Rebecca McBeth ~ 28/09/2015

An open source electronic patient record system has gone live across an NHS acute trust for the first time today.


Epic EHR adds to UK hospital’s financial mess
HealthcareITNews ~ Bernie Monegain ~ 28/09/2015

The rollout of a $300M Epic EHR implementation at Cambridge University Hospitals in the UK is making a bad financial situation worse, according to news reports from across the pond.


Hospitals sued for overcharging patients for EHR copies
FierceEMR ~ Marla Durben Hirsch ~ 28/09/2015

Two hospitals in the District of Columbia have been sued for charging “illegal” and “excessive” fees to patients for providing them with copies of their electronic health records, according to an article in the Washington Business Journal.


Indian healthcare to spend US$1.2 billion on IT
Elets News Network ~ ENN ~ 28/09/2015

Indian healthcare providers will be spending US$1.2 billion on IT products and services in 2015, an increase of seven per cent over 2014, Gartner, global information technology research and advisory company said.


ResearchKit on stage at HIMSS Connected Health Conference
mHealth News ~ Eric Wicklund ~ 28/09/2015

One of the highlights at last year’s mHealth Summit was a standing-room-only session on Apple’s newly unveiled HealthKit.


Blues to offer consumers more data on physicians
Health Data Management ~ Joseph Goedert ~ 25/09/2015

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association has launched a new platform on its Axis data analytics infrastructure to collect specific data from all 36 Blues plans that will give consumers with coverage more information when picking a physician while selecting a benefit plan.


Surgeons call patient follow-ups via portals, face-to-face ‘equally effective’
FierceHealthIT ~ Dan Bowman ~ 25/09/2015

Online communication via a patient portal was a preferred follow-up method for surgery patients, according to research published online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.


HIC2015: ScrubUp app scrubs up well for theatre nurses

Sydney-based Allis Technology has launched version two of its ScrubUp app for operating room nurses and surgical assistants, featuring a new journal section where users can record and save details of the procedures they are involved in.

The app has been developed by registered nurse Marrianne McGhee, an experienced scrub/scout nurse and peri-operative nurse educator who wanted to provide newly graduated nurses or those new to the theatre environment with guidance on different procedures.

“The idea of the app is to help guide and support operating room nurses, in addition to improving operating room efficiency and enhancing patient safety,” Ms McGhee said.

“There are a number of different surgical specialties so what ScrubUp does is to provide help and guidance, especially to nurses who are new to the operating room or may not be experienced in a certain procedure or surgical specialty.”

ScrubUp is preloaded with guidelines on the most common surgical procedures from 10 specialties, including orthopaedics, plastics, cardio-thoracic, ENT, gynaecology, cosmetic, obstetric, gastrointestinal and ophthalmology. The app allows nurses to add or delete any of the preloaded procedures to suit their own or their hospital’s needs.

Ms McGhee is looking for feedback from nurses about other specialities they’d like to see added.

Users can also take photos of different pieces of equipment, prostheses, instruments and instrument trays, and use the app to create a particular surgeon’s preference list, complete with their own photo.

“Different surgeons have different preferences for sutures, dressings, drains etc,” Ms McGhee said. “ScrubUp is able to capture individual requirements and enable the nurse to accurately recall this information.”

The nurse can download whatever specialty they are involved with and create their surgeon’s preference list. They can also click on a particular procedure where there are guidelines on preparation, steps on how to prepare the patient, she said.

“It varies for each surgeon, so the nurse can document that. For example, the different ways they like to drape – square drapes or fenestrated drape – and any other pieces of information that will enhance patient safety and make the operation more efficient.”

There are also tips and information on how to set up the operating room. A nurse can customise what equipment a surgeon prefers, what company’s prostheses they use and any other details that may aid in the efficiency of the surgical procedure, including photos of equipment to help them prepare for the case at hand, she said.

“The nurse is able to obtain the exact information for that procedure, [which] minimises any unnecessary tension that can rise within the operating room.”

The new journal feature allows nurses to record what shift and date the procedure took place on, at what time, by what surgeon and with what team. ScrubUp also has a function for saving notes on particular procedures that nurses can use for their own professional development and reflective practice.

They can also tailor the preloaded information for their own purposes with the ability to add, delete or save any of the information included, which Ms McGhee has sourced from her own extensive experience of scout and scrub nursing.

In addition to guiding and informing nurses about unfamiliar procedures, Ms McGhee hopes that nurses who are a little nervous or anxious about a new procedure – or working with a new surgeon – will use the tool to help them prepare.

“They can look at it on their way to work as the information is available anywhere, any time,” she said. “For example, for orthopaedics there are a lot of prostheses and differences with how each surgeon likes their operating room set up. With the ScrubUp app, the scout nurse could take a photo for the scrub nurse showing how the surgeon prefers the operating room set-up.”

The app is available for iPhone users now and an Android version will be available in September. Ms McGhee said smartphones are generally the preferred device for operating theatre nurses, and while they are equipped with cameras, nurses are aware of the standards and policies on taking photos in theatre and correct professional conduct concerning their patients.

Future improvements will hopefully include the ability to share a particular surgeon’s preferences between nurses who regularly work with them on different campuses. The new version also enables the nurse to SMS or email surgical preferences to other colleagues.

The app costs $2.49 per month per speciality and is available now from the App Store.

Australasian health week in review: July 4

Pulse+IT’s weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

Internet in the land of the long trenches
The Dominion Post ~ Stephen Gale ~ 03/07/2015

On Thursday the Commerce Commission took a further step toward finalising the wholesale broadband prices Chorus can charge internet service providers (ISPs) like Vodafone, Spark and CallPlus. This process affects every New Zealand household and business that uses broadband internet.


24/7 televideo e-health: the doctor will see you now … via video
The Australian ~ Mitchell Bingemann ~ 02/07/2015

Doctors’ appointments could soon go the way of the landline telephone with the launch of ­Telstra’s flagship telemedicine service ReadyCare, a 24/7 video and telephone hotline that will provide advice, treatment, diagnosis and prescriptions directly into people’s homes.


New Royal Adelaide Hospital faces a dud IT system, surgeons say
News.com.au ~ Brad Crouch ~ 02/07/2015

The troubled $422 million IT system that is meant to run the new Royal Adelaide Hospital is “disastrous”, according to surgeons who have rejected State Government assurances that all is well.


Two-thirds of GPs will raise fees due to freeze
Australian Doctor ~ Serkan Ozturk ~ 02/07/2015

Medical practices are already raising fees to cope with the rebate freeze amid claims that 60% of GPs will stop bulk-billing or charge patients a higher private fee.


Electronic patient records system faces further cost blowouts and problems, SA Auditor-General warns
ABC News ~ ~ 01/07/2015

The rollout of an electronic medical records system in South Australian hospitals may still face further delays and cost blowouts, the auditor-general has warned.


Abbott government’s rebadged Medicare Locals tied up in legal stoush over name
Sydney Morning Herald ~ Heath Aston ~ 01/07/2015

It’s the type of bureaucratic blunder that could provide the script for an episode of Rob Sitch’s satire Utopia or Yes Minister.


Mars Bar-sized device can decode your DNA
New Zealand Herald ~ Jamie Morton ~ 01/07/2015

Finding out what nasty bugs are in your system could soon be done much faster thanks to a Mars Bar-sized device capable of quickly decoding your genetic make-up.


Department of Health tells providers they can’t use ‘primary health network’ in any marketing, branding
ABC News ~ Sophie Scott ~ 30/06/2015

The launch of the Federal Government’s new primary health networks has been thrown into confusion with the new organisations told they cannot use the name “primary health network” in any marketing or branding without independent legal advice.


NBN satellite to give bush a cleaner bill of health
The Australian ~ Supratim Adhikari ~ 30/06/2015

The NBN satellite service promises to deliver a boon for rural Australia with results of one telehealth pilot program highlighting its enormous potential to provide diagnostic health services to those in remote locations.


Victoria looks for new emergency services CIO
iTNews ~ Andrew Sadauskas ~ 30/06/2015

The Victorian agency responsible for triple zero services in the state is hunting for a new chief information officer after its former tech chief was given a promotion.


Medical privacy ‘at risk’
Medical Observer ~ Flynn Murphy ~ 29/06/2015

A national privacy rights group has criticised plans to transition the PCEHR to an opt-out system, warning the “minimal value and benefits” of a PCEHR do not match the privacy risk of establishing a repository of every Australian’s identity and health data.


Murtagh backs new patient education website
Australian Doctor ~ Serkan Ozturk ~ 29/06/2015

Renowned as the author of the most influential textbooks on general practice, Emeritus Professor John Murtagh is now giving his backing to a website aimed at educating patients on medical issues.


HISA gears up to hack health at HIC 2015

‘Driving reform: digital health is everyone’s business’ is the theme of the 2015 Health Informatics Conference (HIC), which is heading to Brisbane this year and will feature a health hackathon along with the ever-popular Q&A with the ABC’s Tony Jones.

Mr Jones will put the question of how to get to digital health faster to a panel of experts, including David Hansen, chair of HIC organiser the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) and director of the CSIRO’s eHealth research centre in Brisbane.

Dr Hansen will be joined by HIC 2015 chair Michael Cleary and Johanna Westbrook, director of the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research at the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI).

Running throughout HIC this year will be a health hackathon facilitated by Juliana Alvarez and Shreya Tekriwal of Canada’s Hacking Health, which organises hackathons and workshops around the world.

The organisation believes that while the term “hacker” has negative connotations, it simply means challenging entrenched problems by testing innovative concepts and ideas through the rapid building and testing of low-cost prototypes.

All HIC delegates are invited to view a series of one-minute pitches as the hackathon kicks off.

International keynote speakers include Thomas Lee, co-founder of Symplur, which has developed a web-based platform that tracks Twitter conversations about healthcare and allows it to be analysed; and Helen Bevan, chief transformation officer with the NHS’s quality improvement arm.

Also speaking are the CEO of the American Medical Informatics Association, Doug Fridsma, and the coordinator of Brazil’s national EHR project, Ricardo Puttini.

HIC 2015 will be held in Brisbane from August 3 to 5. Registrations are open now.

Good results by Staying Strong sees telehealth expansion

Community care provider integratedliving is rolling out telehealth services to 13 different regions in four states following the success of its Staying Strong telehealth project, which trialled in-home and hub-based monitoring of vital signs for older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

integratedliving has now received funding from the federal government through what was formerly known as the Home and Community Care (HACC) program to expand the project into an ongoing service in NSW, Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania.

The company, which predominantly works with older people and people with disabilities in regional and rural areas, first began the Staying Strong trial as part of the NBN-Enabled Telehealth Pilots Program in 2013.

Staying Strong involved four NBN-enabled sites – Armidale and Coffs Harbour in NSW and Toowoomba and Goodna in Queensland – and tested two kinds of telehealth delivery using Tunstall Healthcare’s Integrated Care Platform (ICP) solution.

One group received a tablet device and a range of Bluetooth-enabled peripheral equipment along with remote monitoring by a telehealth nurse in their home.

The second group attended “hubs” set up in association with Aboriginal community health centres which provided a dedicated space for telehealth monitoring and storage of the hub equipment for people who did not have adequate internet connectivity at home.

The main aims were to see if remote monitoring could be used cost-effectively in regional areas but also to test the acceptance of the technology by indigenous people. On both measures it was successful, an independent evaluation has found.

The project included 136 older Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants in total, all aged over 50, 90 per cent of whom had five or more chronic health conditions, the most common being high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and high blood cholesterol. Thirty per cent reported that they had been admitted to hospital at least once in the previous 12 months and all but three participants took daily medications.

An individualised monitoring plan of each person’s vital health parameters, acceptable margins and frequency was designed by their regular GP or a registered nurse. Measurements were taken by the various Bluetooth devices, with Tunstall’s monitoring software then transmitting the person’s health data to the ICP triage manager patient management system. Any readings of of concern were then remotely triaged and followed up by the integratedliving telehealth nurses.

Participants were guided through the process by a touchscreen monitor that uses large visual symbols and a voice element that asks questions of the user in short and simple phrases, prompting the selection of an option on the touchscreen.

According to the independent evaluation, the kinaesthetic or tactile nature of the interaction with the monitor particularly suited many of the participants as it matched older Aboriginal people’s auditory and visual, rather than text-based, learning style.

In fact, the evaluation says these findings indicate there is a very high potential for telehealth in rural and remote areas to improve the health of older Aboriginal people.

integratedliving CEO Catherine Daley said the implications and benefits of the Staying Strong project were “powerful”.

“The pilot has shown telehealth can be useful in reducing the cost burden of healthcare,” Ms Daley said.

“More importantly, Staying Strong facilitated the development of strong and effective partnerships with Aboriginal organisations and communities, which was vital not only to the successful attainment of the project objectives, but also for enhancing opportunities to continue to support older Aboriginal people.”

In addition to suiting their style, the participants loved it. Only six withdrew and 98 per cent said they enjoyed being part of the project. In several instances, participants were quickly referred to their GP or advised to go straight to hospital due to the trends in their vital signs, and there were also a number of cases in which individuals were able to spot a concerning trend and manage it themselves.

Taking part in the project, having the equipment in their homes and its ease of use also instilled a sense of pride in the participants, the evaluation found.

In terms of cost effectiveness, the trial found that remote telehealth monitoring costs less than half that of the traditional visiting nurse model and would be a cost-effective way to deliver better health outcomes to people living in regional, rural and remote Australia.

The estimated cost of face-to-face delivery of in-home vital health signs monitoring for five days a week by a registered nurse is approximately $347.82 per participant, integratedliving says.

However, the weekly average cost of delivering remote telehealth monitoring in participants’ own homes for five days a week was $137.52 per participant, or 40 per cent of the traditional model.

“The cost of the face-to-face delivery model increases when the RN has to travel greater distance in more rural areas,” the evaluation found. “The high cost of face-to-face monitoring, usually results in less frequent monitoring by RNs, or periodical monitoring when the participants visit their clinic or doctor for routine health checks.”

Tunstall’s corporate development manager Lisa Capamagian said the success of the trial provides evidence that telehealth should be considered in new models of care that will lead to the mainstreaming of telehealth for aged, community and social care.

integratedliving has now been able to roll out mainstream telehealth nursing services on a bigger scale, covering 13 regions across NSW, Queensland, the ACT and Tasmania.

Ms Daley said the expansion of the telehealth service was part of the company’s commitment to eHealth and to facilitating health and well-being in the community as part of its service model, which it has dubbed “Embracing Life”.

“With the consumer-directed care philosophy comes enabling and re-enablement,” she said. “It’s really about client choice and control and about facilitating people to make choices.”

Part of the trial’s focus was to see what were the barriers for older people in the community, particularly indigenous elders, to using technology to access assistance. It also wanted to find out what would interest people in using the technology.

“The research found that there were really very few barriers to using the technology, which was great,” Ms Daley said. “People kind of assumed that older Aboriginal people won’t use [technology] or wouldn’t want to do it, but that wasn’t the case at all.”

Ms Daley said working closely with community members and Aboriginal health organisations on the pilot, along with an intergenerational project that accompanied the trial, meant that the participants felt supported. Family members also became integral to the use of the technology and would often help their elders with their monitoring.

Many of the participants in the pilot are continuing to receive telehealth assistance but it is now open to other integratedliving clients. The company has also appointed former RDNS telehealth manager Mat Tyler to further expand its eHealth offerings.