Electronic Health Records (EHR, EMR)

The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) is partnering with Australian software organisations to design world leading software for specialists. ADHA has provided nine specialist software vendors with A$40,000 each to complete designs that seamlessly and securely integrate the My Health Record (MHR) into their current systems to bring benefits to specialists, such as cardiologists or anaesthetists.  In addition to funding, ADHA will provide design expertise to work with each vendor’s design teams to co-produce improvements in design with their users.  The nine specialist software vendors are:  Best Practice Software Clinic to Cloud Clinical Computers Genie Solutions Intrahealth Medical-Objects Medical Wizard Software for Specialists Zedmed The software organisations will work with ADHA and specialists to develop these designs over the coming months. ADHA ran an expression of interest process in May 2019, where software developers with a clinical information system being used in at least 10 private specialist practices in Australia at 1 May 2019 were invited to apply. MHR DEVELOPMENTS Some parts of the health sector have enthusiastically embraced the MHR – such as community pharmacy which has increased registrations from 20% in June 2018 to 86% in June 2019. ADHA is now turning its focus to increasing use by specialists over the next 12 months. The agency announced that in February 2019 that 9 out of 10 Australians have a MHR following the conclusion of the opt-out period. Last month, the pathology departments of South Australia and Northern Territory have connected to MHR to provide better patient and clinician experience through the seamless flow of pathology reports. ON THE RECORD “Australian specialists are world leaders in innovation – whether in clinical techniques, robotics, or medical engineering. We want to support our local clinical information system vendors to integrate the MHR into their software in a way that encourages specialists to embrace these systems in the same way they’ve embraced other technology. We won’t be specifying what changes should be made to systems. Instead, we will work vendors and their customers – the specialists themselves – to come up with designs that specialists and their practice staff will love to use, and which will benefit from the rich data provided by the My Health Record,” said Ms Bettina McMahon, Chief Operating Officer, ADHA in a statement. 

A study in Health Affairs finds that strategies for managing how in-basket messages are generated and presented could improve the job satisfaction of frontline clinical staff.

Optima's cloud-based EHR helps outpatient therapists build patient care plans, track treatment goals and document care, with features including a clinical content library and customizable templates.

Rahul Goyal, MD, physician informatics lead at Mediclinic Middle East in the UAE, discusses retrieving useful information from a minimal amount of EHR clicks.

Malaysian Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said that it would cost up to RM1.5B to implement an EMR system for the 145 hospitals nationwide in Malaysia over the next five years, according to an article by The Edge Markets. Dr Dzulkefly last mentioned in November 2018 that it would take about three years to implement an EMR system across the country. Currently, 35 or 25% of the 145 government hospitals are already equipped with Hospital Information System (HIS), while 7% or 118 out of 1,703 government clinics have been equipped with Clinical Information System (CIS). He said that among the HIS products being used currently are Cerner, iSoft, Fisicien, Profdoc, and Patient Management System for hospitals while clinics are using CIS products such as Teleprimary Care (TPC), Oral Health Care Information System (OHCIS) and TPC-OHCIS integrated system. “Implementing this EMR System will directly improve the quality of service delivery by taking into account the confidentiality requirements of patient information. This is the reason why EMR as the foundation / pillar of Digital Healthcare is my goal and ambition as I lead the Ministry of Health,” said Dr Dzulkefly in a recent post from his Facebook page. The same post also stated that the proposed implementation of the nationwide EMR will be under review for the next three to five years based on the availability of options. Elsewhere in the Southeast Asia region, Vietnam is slated to deploy a nationwide EHR this month. 

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