Concerns about patient safety raised by clinicians using Far North Queensland’s new Regional Information via Electronic Records (RIVeR) system are so serious that one union is advising members to use alternatives and another is calling for a complete pause in its use until the concerns are addressed.

RIVeR, which is part of the $35 million Regional eHealth Project (ReHP) first funded in 2012, is a shared electronic health record based on Telstra Health’s Communicare primary and community care software and has been rolled out to 28 rural and remote sites in the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service (CHHHS) and Torres and Cape HHS (TCHHS) catchments.