ACT Government to invest $35 million more on digital health records
The ACT government is expected to invest over A$50 million ($35 million) to fully implement a statewide digital health record this year.
This comes on top of A$151 million in funding secured under the 2018-19 budget for the project, which will be rolled out by US EMR provider Epic across Canberra’s public hospitals and community health centres.
According to ACT Health, the digital health record will allow real-time capture of information and provide access to historical information.
Compared to the federal government’s My Health Record system, the ACT’s digital health record will be more detailed as it will be a record of all interactions between a Canberran and the ACT public health system.
Latrobe Community Health to roll out Global Health’s EMR solutions
Gippsland-based Latrobe Community Health Service is set to adopt MasterCare EMR solutions from ASX-listed healthcare software provider Global Health.
According to a media release, Global Health will provide MasterCare EMR, Data Warehouse, MasterCare Connect, e-switch integration and ReferralNet messaging application.
According to Global Health, its MasterCare solutions will enable the community health service to “improve continuity of care across multidisciplinary service teams; improve patient outcomes through automated workflows; modernize data collection; obtain better decisions at the point of care with mobile solutions; digitize referral management processes; and improve coordination across all their services.”
Latrobe chose Global Health for its ability to manage the size and complexity of the healthcare delivery it offers, while being able to scale as it grows its services over the years. The health service provides care in over 50 areas spanning Metropolitan Melbourne.
Western Australia launches advanced care planning online resource site
The Western Australian Government has launched an online portal to access advanced care planning resources.
The website contains an advanced care planning guide for consumers and health professionals, a guide to completing their Advance Health Directive (AHD) and other online content.
AHD is a legal document that people sign to allow their treatments to be recorded if they are unable to communicate such decisions themselves.
It is one of the advanced care planning documents that enables Western Australians to record and share their preferences and decisions; other documents include the values and preferences form and Enduring Powers of Guardianship.
The online portal was developed following the recommendation made by the WA Parliamentary Joint Select Committee on End of Life Choices, which found that only 7.5% of the state’s population had adequately planned for their health and personal care.
“The new resources will benefit not only West Australians approaching the end of their lives, but anyone who wants to make their treatment decisions, values and beliefs known,” commented WA Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson .
