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Cubiko appoints Michael Griffin as chief operating officer

20 July 2020

Brisbane-based primary care business analytics platform Cubiko has appointed former Genie Solutions staffer Michael Griffin as its chief operating officer.

Mr Griffin has 20 years’ experience working in the data, technology and health industries. He spent 11 years at Genie before working with data analytics firms Aginic and CoreLogic.

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International health IT week in review: July 19

19 July 2020

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending July 19: Patients want digital health, patients want telehealth, digital health literacy, COVID-19 data platform, LOINC joins international standards org, Patients Know Best added to NHS app, digital physiotherapy, GOSH gets EMRAM and O-EMRAM 6

Half of consumers avoid seeking care because it's too difficult
FierceHealthcare ~ Jeff Lagasse ~ 13/07/2020

Finding, accessing, and paying for healthcare in America requires so much work that half of consumers have avoided seeking care altogether, a new survey has found.


Calls for greater investment in GP telehealth following Covid-19
Digital Health News ~ Andrea Downey ~ 15/07/2020

The report, which builds on the RCGP's vision for what general practice should look like in 2030, calls for further commitments to digital technology to enable remote monitoring, digital consultations, flexible working and better sharing of data.


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Barriers to telehealth in danger of being rebuilt

17 July 2020

Just as a long-awaited breakthrough occurred when the Australian Department of Health opened up the Medical Benefits Schedule to telehealth item numbers to help GPs deal with the coronavirus pandemic in March, that breakthrough may very well be in danger of being severely curtailed with new restrictions being placed on telehealth provision.

Under pressure from the doctors' lobby groups, Health Minister Greg Hunt announced on July 10 that restrictions would be placed on who can receive MBS-funded telehealth consults from July 20, limiting them to patients who have an existing relationship with a GP or practice and have been seen face to face in the last 12 months. Children and people at risk of homelessness remain covered.

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iMedX and Kodak Alaris launch remote coding solution for paper-based hospitals

16 July 2020

Medical transcription and clinical coding specialist iMedX has partnered with scanning solution provider Kodak Alaris to develop a scanning and remote coding solution for paper-based hospitals.

The solutions, ScanR and CodeR, were jointly developed to enable hospitals with paper-based records to access a remote coding workforce if onsite staff are quarantined or forced offsite due to COVID-19 and back-up is unavailable.

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Bowel cancer screening test results added to My Health Record

16 July 2020

Test results from the National Bowel Cancer Screening program are now being uploaded to the My Health Record of participating patients by the program's contracted pathology service provider Sonic Healthcare.

From this week, Sonic will upload a copy of the letter patients receive explaining their results after a test, which can be viewed by the patient on their record after seven days. They will also be sent the results in the post.

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Lifeline expands text-based crisis support service for COVID-19

15 July 2020

Lifeline Australia has expanded its SMS-based crisis support and suicide prevention service Lifeline Text to enable it to offer 10,000 additional crisis interventions for young people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The service was introduced following research that found 30 per cent of Australians prefer to access support via short form messaging. Lifeline Text is accessed at higher rates by youth, those who identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people living with a disability and the LGBTIQ+ community.

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NZ sees drop in telehealth volume as general practice emerges from lockdown

15 July 2020

New Zealand GPs have reported a decline in the number of telehealth consultations they are providing as the country emerges from lockdown but practices are still under strain from COVID-19 and financial pressures remain a concern.

The data comes from the third in a series of quick COIVD-19 primary care surveys led by University of Auckland researchers that aim to understand and monitor NZ general practice responses to the pandemic.

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Breast Cancer Foundation to pilot PROMs program at Waikato DHB

14 July 2020

Breast Cancer Foundation NZ (BCFNZ) has partnered with Auckland patient reported measures company Cemplicity to trial a new platform that combines online patient symptom surveys with clinical decision support for rapid symptom management for patients with advanced breast cancer.

Called ABCPro, the system provides an electronic feedback channel for patients at home that feeds into a clinical decision support system to give oncologists and nurses real time evidence of adverse changes in symptoms and guidelines on treatment decisions that take into account the patient's symptom journey, medications and co-morbidities.

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SA Health looking to streamline clinical results tracking

14 July 2020

SA Health has issued a request for information from the market for a potential clinical results tracking solution to reduce administrative workloads and streamline the receipt and acknowledgement of tests results.

SA Health says a fit for purpose clinical results tracking system is required that may be deployed as an interfaced system to existing EMR and PAS systems but primarily used as a standalone system dedicated to management and escalation of clinical results.

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Murrumbidgee goes mobile with Miya Precision and MEMRe

14 July 2020

Murrumbidgee Local Health District has signed two contracts with ASX-listed health information software vendor Alcidion Group that will see it roll out Alcidion's Miya MEMRe mobile EMR solution and a COVID-19 monitoring dashboard for Miya Precision.

Murrumbidgee LHD elected to use Miya Precision for 12 months from the start of this year and has now signed two contracts confirming the scope of use at Wagga Wagga Base Hospital and for associated professional services.

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Hunt agrees to restrict MBS funding for telehealth to usual GP or practice

13 July 2020

The federal government has agreed to restrict Medicare-subsidised telehealth services to a patient's regular GP or medical practice, beginning next week.

Temporary MBS items for telehealth were introduced in March to try to help reduce community transmission of COVID-19, especially for high-risk patients, but were later expanded to become general in nature with no relation to diagnosing or treating COVID-19. They are due to expire in September.

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Matthew Miles named new RACGP CEO

13 July 2020

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has appointed Matthew Miles as its new CEO.

Dr Miles takes over from Zena Burgess, who resigned in October 2019. Chief operating officer Nick Williamson has been acting as CEO in the interim.

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International health IT week in review: July 12

12 July 2020

Telehealth in the supermarket, telehealth in the pharmacy, health technology assessments for health apps, doctors need better EMRs, prescribing digital therapeutics, vulnerabilities in open-source EMRs, tele-ICU for US VA, telehealth claims up 8000%, cloudRx for private UK docs, COVID-19 research data alliance, painful journey for NHS contact tracing app

Asda launches virtual in-store GP service with Medicspot
Healthcare IT News ~ Sara Mageit ~ 07/07/2020

Medicspot has announced a partnership with Asda to offer in-store GP video-consultations in the latest expansion of digital primary care services.


In-store virtual care service launched in B.C.
Canadian Healthcare Technology ~ Staff writer ~ 08/07/2020

Shoppers Drug Mart and Canada’s leading virtual care provider, Maple, have launched in-store virtual care across British Columbia locations. Online doctor visits at Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacies are covered by B.C.’s Medical Services Plan (MSP), just like in-person appointments.


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COVID second wave threatens to swamp Melbourne Health’s big bang

10 July 2020

There's probably any number of excuses that people make to get out of training for new workplace IT systems, but “EMR training gave me the plague” is certainly a novel one. Something similar to that claim was made in a story in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers this week, in which an unnamed doctor said Royal Melbourne Hospital was “putting staff in danger in order to satisfy their own timeline” for the roll-out of the new Epic EMR, which is due to go live next month.

Royal Melbourne, the Royal Women's and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre are all rolling out Epic in a big bang implementation as part of the $124 million Parkville Precinct project, which is using Royal Children's Hospital's 2016 implementation as a template. The Epic emergency department module is live at RMH and planning and training for a May go-live for the full system in the other facilities was well underway when the pandemic struck.

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Northern Beaches Hospital takes patient-centric approach to eMeds roll-out

9 July 2020

Sydney's Northern Beaches Hospital went live with DXC Technology's MedChart electronic medication management system in March, using a patient-centric approach that saw all wards and departments swapping from paper to digital in just 11 days at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

eMeds is the culmination of close to 16 months of digital implementations since the hospital's somewhat troubled opening, including optimising the Telstra Health electronic medical record, building a health information exchange with the Cerner EMR used in other hospitals in the local health district and eHealth NSW's HealtheNet system, and implementing the MOSAIQ oncology management system.

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Govt delays voluntary patient enrolment scheme due to COVID-19

8 July 2020

The Australian Department of Health has decided to delay the $448.5 million voluntary patient enrolment (VPE) scheme that was due to start last week due to the COVID-19 pandemic response.

The initiative was aimed at patients aged over 70 and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 50 years and over and was expected to herald a universal telehealth scheme to better support flexible access for enrolled patients.

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ePrescriptions launch in the Hunter New England region

8 July 2020

Newcastle resident Keith Doolan has had his prescription medication dispensed and delivered to his front door following a telehealth consultation with his GP, facilitated by Australia's new electronic prescription capability.

The end-to-end workflow involved practice management system Best Practice, pharmacy system Z Software, prescription exchange services eRx and MediSecure, along with dispensary workflow and patient communication tool Scrypt and delivery service Yello.

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Global Health signs up Peninsula Health, plans integrations with iPM and Cerner

7 July 2020

ASX-listed healthcare software firm Global Health has signed a three-year contract with Peninsula Health for to roll out its MasterCare platform for community health, adding the first metropolitan health service to a growing number of regional health providers.

As part of the implementation of MasterCare, Global Health will integrate with DXC Technology's iPM patient administration system and some of Cerner's clinical applications. Peninsula Health includes the 454-bed Frankston Hospital and Rosebud Hospital and has used a Cerner EMR for a number of years.

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Core Schedule raises $1.2m to expand rostering solution beyond COVID-19

7 July 2020

Wellington-based software vendor Core Schedule has raised $NZ1.2 million from early stage technology venture capital firm the Punakaiki Fund to expand its hospital staff rostering solution, which was developed for New Zealand emergency departments and is now used in over 80 hospitals in New Zealand, Australia and the US.

Core Schedule recently introduced a new feature that allows staff to be tagged as “not available – in isolation” so managers can see who is able to work during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Fred IT to build real-time prescription monitoring system for SA Health

7 July 2020

Fred IT has won a $3.8 million contract to build a real-time prescription monitoring system for South Australia, which is expected to be available early next year.

Dubbed ScriptCheckSA, the new system will be based on the SafeScript system built by Fred and in use in Victoria, which is also being adapted for Queensland's RTPM system, known as QScript.

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POLAR data tracks increase in mental health diagnoses in general practice

6 July 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen an increase in new mental health diagnoses by GPs, particularly anxiety-related, along with a steady increase in antidepressant prescribing and a marked increase in anxiolytic prescribing, the latest data from Outcome Health's POLAR GP tool shows.

Outcome Health is recommending that the government give more support to general practice by encouraging longer consultations in a variety of modes, including telehealth, and should consider an MBS item number for nurse check-in on isolated patients via telehealth.

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HealthEngine partners with Coviu for integrated GP and allied health offering

6 July 2020

Online appointment booking and directory service HealthEngine has partnered with telehealth platform Coviu to offer an integrated telehealth solution for allied health providers and GPs.

The offering brings Coviu’s telehealth technology together with HealthEngine’s booking service through the more than 25 practice management systems that HealthEngine currently connects with.

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International health IT week in review: July 5

5 July 2020

Post-COVID digital market, telehealth by Boots, Lenovo's remote monitoring platform, Apple sleep tracker, cyberpandemic fears, medical school pays $1m to decrypt files, telehealth decline after spike, Medicare-funded telehealth in US

Investors predict the winners and losers in America’s shift to digital health during the pandemic
CNBC ~ Christina Farr ~ 27/06/2020

Not every company in the field will do well, despite the fact that more Americans are now opting for virtual doctor visits, online drug purchases and at-home medical testing.


Boots offers access to online video pharmacy consultations for people living with cancer
MobiHealthNews ~ Sara Mageit ~ 01/07/2020

Europe’s leading digital healthcare provider, Livi, has announced a major new partnership with UK’s largest pharmacy-led health and beauty retailer, Boots, and Macmillan Cancer Support, to offer free specialist information and support on cancer, its treatment and possible side-effects.


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Turf wars pop up over telehealth

3 July 2020

As has been widely reported here and elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic has seen a huge increase in telehealth provision in primary care. In Australia, MBS figures showing that 36 per cent of all GP consultations were done by telehealth in April alone, and that number is expected to remain high when the May and June figures are released. But now that the restrictions on movement are being lifted in many countries, doctors' groups like the RACGP are running a campaign to get patients back into general practice and not put off seeing their GP any longer.

In Australia, the RACGP is also running a campaign against what it is calling “pop-up” telehealth services, claiming that some of the new services are potentially providing sub-standard and inappropriate care. The AMA has joined the party and is actively lobbying the government to tighten the rules in order to prevent these services from potentially undermining the relationship between patients and their regular GP.

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Meredith Makeham to leave ADHA for academic post

2 July 2020

Chief medical adviser to the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) Meredith Makeham will leave the agency at the end of the month to take up a position as associate dean of community and primary healthcare at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Medicine and Health.

Professor Makeham has been with the agency since November 2016 and was previously a patient safety adviser to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. A practicing GP, she was also a member of the expert committee for eHealth and practice systems with the RACGP.

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NSW Health developing new virtual care strategy for post-COVID-19 healthcare

2 July 2020

NSW Health has been developing a new virtual care strategy that will be released for consultation in the next few weeks that lays out the health service's plans for the next five years.

The strategy has been informed by the rapid expansion of telehealth and video conferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen upwards of 250,000 attendees in NSW Health meetings and peer-to-peer calls in some weeks.

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NZ Health Minister resigns after series of blunders

2 July 2020

New Zealand's Health Minister David Clark has resigned, saying he had become a distraction to the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic after a series of blunders.

Dr Clark was demoted in April when he revealed he had broken restrictions on movement, going mountain bike-riding and taking his family for a trip to the beach.

Last week, he appeared to lay blame for lapses in the quarantine system at the feet of director-general for health Ashley Bloomfield.

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ResApp releases SleepCheck app for at-home sleep apnoea screening

1 July 2020

ASX-listed ResApp has released its SleepCheck at-home sleep apnoea screening app for iPhones. The app is able to analyse a user’s breathing and snoring sounds during sleep and provide an assessment of their risk of sleep apnoea.

The app has been validated in a clinical study of 308 people that showed its algorithms were able to accurately assess a person’s risk of sleep apnoea when compared to a full sleep test.

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Foxo launches Broadcast capability for email-free clinical communication

1 July 2020

Secure clinical communication platform start-up Foxo has launched a new broadcasting feature that will allow healthcare organisations to quickly and easily disseminate information to frontline and administrative staff and bypass traditional mass emails.

Foxo was set up as a platform for group messaging that allows multidisciplinary clinical teams both internal and external to healthcare organisations to communicate in context by sharing cases and media over a secure connection.

It offers a secure and encrypted alternative to consumer-grade apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, and enterprise communication tools such as Microsoft Teams or Slack. The platform also allows teams to share clinical images and to handle referrals and clinical handovers.

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Fujifilm helps Western Health to share diagnostic images during COVID-19

30 June 2020

Medical imaging informatics business Fujifilm Australia has worked with Melbourne's Western Health to expand its existing Synapse medical imaging and information management system to increase the number of connections between public hospitals and private radiology providers to help share the burden during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Synapse medical image sharing network has been operated in the region by Fujifilm Australia for over 10 years to connect rural health providers with medical experts from metropolitan hospitals. It allows radiology providers to share patient images with public hospitals in a fast and secure manner and replaces the requirement to physically transfer media such as CDs or DVDs.

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MercyAscot deploys TrakCare PAS during lockdown with remote support

30 June 2020

Auckland private healthcare provider MercyAscot has gone live with InterSystems' TrakCare patient administration and billing functionality during New Zealand’s COVID-19 lockdown, with a full clinical deployment to follow.

The go-live went ahead with remote support and is one of the first deployments of TrakCare on the Microsoft Azure Stack hybrid cloud computing platform.

MercyAscot announced in May 2018 that it would deploy TrakCare to replace its existing patient administration and clinical information systems, backed by infrastructure support from NZ cloud provider Umbrellar.

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Medipass gears up for increased telehealth activity post COVID-19

29 June 2020

When the Australian government announced at the end of March that it would introduce new MBS items to allow healthcare providers to provide bulk-billed consultations to patients at risk from the coronavirus, card payment technology provider Medipass decided to do its bit by not charging for lodging claims using those items for the duration of the pandemic.

Telehealth is a relatively new market for the company, which was set up to allow allied health, general practice and specialist practices to make claims and process card payments without having to use a physical terminal. Medipass allows practices to process a payment simply and quickly in a telehealth situation or take a Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card payment over the phone.

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Hunter New England region rolls out SeNT eReferrals

29 June 2020

General practices in the Hunter New England region of NSW using MedicalDirector or Best Practice are now required to submit referrals to Hunter New England Health using BPAC's SeNT eReferral software.

Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network has funded the purchase and installation of the software and provides initial training for eligible users. Faxed referrals are no longer accepted from these practices.

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International health IT week in review: June 28

28 June 2020

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending June 28: Irish app is launching, Sodinokibi targeting healthcare POS devices, airline's COVID screening tool, Mass eHealth winds down, public health by fax, back-to-work screening, failed NHS app cost £11.8m, handwashing detection in Apple Watch, digital services in aged care, Finland's digital market

Ireland’s contact tracing app ready to launch
MobiHealthNews ~ Sara Mageit ~ 24/06/2020

The An Garda Siochana police force volunteered to take part in field trials to see how it would perform in everyday situations and the results have given health officials the confidence to launch the app to the public.


Sodinokibi ransomware gang targets POS software
Information Security Media Group ~ Akshaya Asokan ~ 24/06/2020

The Sodinokibi ransomware gang is targeting point-of-sale payment device software after infecting networks with its crypto-locking malware, according to Symantec's Threat Intelligence team.


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My Health Record, eight years on

26 June 2020

It's birthday time again for Australia's My Health Record system, which will next week celebrate eight years in operation following two years of gestation. And a difficult birth it was, as we not-so-fondly remember. Our reminiscing was inspired not just by its approaching birthday on July 1 but by a press release from the Australian Digital Health Agency, proudly boasting of a surge in use of the system during the COVID-19 crisis.

The term “surge in use” took us back to 2011 and 2012, when we were breathless with anticipation about the new baby, then known as the PCEHR. Some of our first online stories were about how the medical software industry was approaching the impending birth: first with trepidation, followed by alarm, and then with horror.

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Austin Health using Teams for MDT meetings, SharePoint for document exchange

25 June 2020

Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, Melbourne's Austin Health had been planning for and deploying a range of new clinical and non-clinical functionality using Microsoft 365 for healthcare, including Teams and SharePoint for communication and collaboration.

The organisation had decided to invest a little more money when its last enterprise agreement with Microsoft ended 18 months ago, with plans to use its investment in Office 365 to help solve a raft of current and impending needs.

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Former Medtech Global head behind Cereus investment firm

25 June 2020

Former Medtech Global executive chairman and technology entrepreneur Vino Ramayah is behind a new angel investment firm called Cereus Health that he says is on the look-out for innovative New Zealand health technology start-ups to invest in.

Cereus Health is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cereus Holdings, Mr Ramayah's private investment vehicle, and will bring together existing investments as well as invest in new technologies and healthcare services in New Zealand and internationally.

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Global Health signs up Ballarat Community Health to MasterCare

25 June 2020

Melbourne-based healthcare software vendor Global Health has added Ballarat Community Health to its network of Victorian community health organisations using its MasterCare electronic medical record platform.

Ballarat joins Bellarine Community Health, Sunraysia Community Health, Bass Coast Health, Monash Health and Windana Drug and Alcohol Recovery in implementing MasterCare.

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Telehealth the silver lining in pandemic for consumers: Grattan Institute

24 June 2020

Telehealth should become a permanent feature of healthcare in Australia, with new items for GP and secondary consultations added to the MBS and email consultations offered to enrolled patients, a new Gratton Institute report recommends.

It also recommends that state governments be encouraged to expand hospital-in-the-home, remote monitoring and rehabilitation-in-the-home, and that emphasis be placed on getting My Health Record to be a trusted source of information for patients and clinicians alike.

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April MBS figures show steep rise in consultations by telehealth

24 June 2020

Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) activity figures for the month of April have revealed a steep rise in the number of consultations delivered by telehealth, comprising 36 per cent of all GP consultations and 37 per cent of specialist consults that month.

The vast majority of GP telehealth was done on the telephone, reflecting similar figures from March. In April, 90.7 per cent of GP consults ware done on the phone compared to 9.3 per cent by video conference.

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ADHA to help scale up technology with five innovation challenge winners

23 June 2020

The Australian Digital Health Agency has announced five winners of its recent COVID-19 innovation challenge, who will receive up to $50,000 to scale up the technologies nationally over the next year.

The winners include pharmacy software vendor Fred IT, population health solution vendor Pen CS, CareMonitor for its remote monitoring platform, eye health platform vendor Oculo, and the Murdoch Children's Research Institute for its AllergyPal app, developed in association with design firm Curve Tomorrow.

The competition was announced in early May aimed at existing companies that can roll out the potential solution in the 2020/21 fiscal year.

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Southern DHB rolls out cloud transcription system under COVID-19 pressure

23 June 2020

Southern District Health Board is live with phase one of its implementation of the iMedX cloud-based dictation and transcription platform, which was introduced to replace the legacy MedDocs system in a matter of weeks under the pressure of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The implementation itself was largely done remotely as administrative staff and some doctors moved offsite, requiring iMedX to develop a remote training program from Australia and the DHB's IT team to do the hands-on implementation work the vendor would normally do.

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ResApp to develop consumer respiratory app, to go live with Phenix app

22 June 2020

ASX listed digital health company ResApp has signed a memorandum of understanding with health products manufacturer RB, formerly known as Reckitt Benckiser, to develop a smartphone app for consumers that uses ResApp’s cough-based algorithms to identify different respiratory conditions.

ResApp and RB have agreed to work together to build and test a prototype app for consumers to self-assess, or assess with the assistance of a pharmacist, their respiratory symptoms.

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COVID-19 sees big boost to prostate physiotherapy by telehealth

22 June 2020

When physiotherapists Travis Monk, Barry Nguyen and Eric Leckie set up a telehealth-based service for men living with prostate cancer 18 months ago, they were aiming to target a niche group of patients, particularly those in rural and regional parts of the country.

The service started off slowly as it was relatively unchartered territory in this country, but COVID-19 pandemic has seen take-up of their Online Prostate Physiotherapy (OPP) service jump by 50 per cent almost overnight.

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International health IT week in review: June 21

21 June 2020

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending June 21: Trouble with COVID contact tracing apps in Bahrain, Kuwait, Norway, UK, US, embracing digital health in age of coronavirus, hospital interoperability platform, using HIEs to increase interoperability, telephone and text trump telehealth, retailers entering digital health sector

Privacy fears over COVID apps by Bahrain, Kuwait, Norway
Al Jazeera ~ Staff writer ~ 16/06/2020

Live tracking of users' locations puts thousands of people at risk, Amnesty International says.


Government abandons contact-tracing app for Apple and Google’s tech
Digital Health News ~ Andrea Downey ~ 18/06/2020

The government has abandoned its model for the NHS contact-tracing app and switched to Google and Apple’s technology.


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Digital Health CRC loses its head

19 June 2020

We're not quite sure what's the deal here but the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre, launched with much fanfare and buckets of cash in April 2018, has lost its second CEO in just over two years of operation.

No exact reason has been given for Victor Pantano's abrupt departure other than he has moved to find alternative employment, but it's not a great look for the initiative, which in addition to $55 million in federal government funds was pledged cash and in-kind funding from various universities and industry partners for a total of $279m over seven years.

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High anxiety: how the national coronavirus helpline was scaled up in four days

18 June 2020

When the global coronavirus pandemic was officially declared by the WHO on March 11, governments around the world began ramping up preparations to handle the outbreak on a national scale.

In Australia, one of the earliest responses was to set up a national coronavirus helpline operated by Healthdirect Australia to handle an expected influx of calls from the public. Healthdirect also set up the national coronavirus symptom checker, which launched on March 25.

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The San using AI to automate multidisciplinary team meetings

18 June 2020

Sydney Adventist Hospital is using artificial intelligence to automatically populate its cancer multidisciplinary team meeting (MDT) system with pathology information using natural language processing from local company Health Language Analytics (HLA).

The hospital, better known as the San, has also moved to enable its MDT meetings to be held remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, and even launched its new urology and gynaecological oncology modules remotely due to the crisis.

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Williams takes over from O’Farrell as Ascom ANZ head

18 June 2020

Healthcare ICT and mobile workflow solutions vendor Ascom has named David Williams as the new managing director for the Australian and New Zealand region, taking over from Feargal O’Farrell, who led the local arm of the Swiss company for three years.

Previously Ascom's sales director for the ANZ region, Mr Williams has a background in medical imaging and extensive experience with healthcare solution providers including Kodak, Comrad, Carestream Health, IP Health and Cerner.

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Feds funding healthdirect Video Call for all GPs for free

17 June 2020

The Australian Department of Health is funding free use of the healthdirect Video Call video consultation service for all GPs until September 30 to help them transition to a new business model during and after the pandemic.

Healthdirect uses the secure Coviu platform that has been purpose-built for the healthcare sector and is already used by a quarter of general practices in the country, supported by primary health networks, as well as for hospital outpatients services in Western Australia, the ACT, South Australia and Victoria.

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Physios running PROMs data pilot using myscoreit collection platform

17 June 2020

The Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA) is set to start a patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) data pilot funded by the Physiotherapy Research Foundation (PRF) to demonstrate the feasibility of data collection to guide more effective clinical decisions.

The pilot will collect PROMs data electronically and in real time from patients with knee conditions who are receiving physiotherapy treatment, using the myscoreit web-based PROMs collection platform.

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Digital Health CRC loses second CEO

17 June 2020

The CEO of the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC) Victor Pantano has resigned after less than 18 months in the job, with former eHealth NSW and HealthDirect senior executive Michael Costello filling in for the next three months as interim CEO.

Dr Pantano was appointed in February 2019, taking over from David Jonas, who helped establish the $200 million+ venture in 2018. The federal government's share of funding is $55m over seven years.

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Private equity firm buys Healius medical centres for $500m

16 June 2020

ASX-listed healthcare provider Healius has sold its medical centre business to ANZ private equity firm BGH Capital for $500 million.

Healius will keep its growing day hospitals and IVF business, which currently sit within its medical centres division, along with its pathology collection centres and imaging clinics located within the centres.

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NZ health system review calls for restructure of DHBs, PHOs, national agencies

16 June 2020

The final report of the Health and Disability System Review chaired by Heather Simpson has recommended a massive restructure of health service provision in New Zealand, including the establishment of a new Health NZ agency responsible for operational health delivery including implementation of digital and data policy, nationally standardised datasets and interoperability standards.

It also calls for the restructure of health service provision with the number of district health boards (DHBs) reduced from 20 to between eight and 12, with board members directly appointed rather than elected, the removal of the requirement to commission primary care services through primary health organisations (PHOs), and a locality-based approach that would see DHBs responsible for primary, community and aged care as well as acute care.

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Specialist online bookings now live for HotDoc and Genie Solutions

15 June 2020

Patient engagement platform HotDoc and practice management software provider Genie Solutions have gone live with their new co-developed online bookings solution for medical specialists.

HotDoc and Genie have worked together for over a year to to build the solution, which lets patients book a specialist appointment through HotDoc but also gives specialists appointment triage capability in Genie.

It has also been developed to be able to handle the multiple locations that specialist doctors typically work from.

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Pen CS integrates with The Practice and Profile

15 June 2020

Pen CS is now integrated with GodBar Software's The Practice and Intrahealth's Profile practice management systems, allowing practices using those them to take part in the Practice Incentives Program quality improvement (PIP QI) incentive in association with their primary health network.

The integrations mean The Practice and Profile users can also use Pen CS's clinical analytics tool CAT4 and its Topbar clinical decision support system.

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International health IT week in review: June 14

14 June 2020

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending June 14: Patient watched consult recording in Babylon app, Mar-a-Lago crowd and $16b DVA deal, Palantir handling NHS data store, eHealth Saskatchewan hack, £275m EHR for Northern Ireland, after-visit summaries, errors in consult notes, Apple shares COVID-19 data with CDC, Microsoft HoloLens for Covid-19 ward rounds

Babylon Health admits GP app suffered a data breach
BBC ~ Leo Kelion ~ 09/06/2020

The firm was alerted to the problem after one of its users discovered he had been given access to dozens of video recordings of other patients' consultations.


GAO report: Mar-a-Lago crowd had a hand in $16B Cerner contract
MedCity News ~ Elise Reuter ~ 07/06/2020

Three Trump advisors had a role in evaluating Cerner’s $16 billion contract to build a new health record system for the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a report released by the Government Accountability Office.


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Back to the new normal

12 June 2020

As the saying now goes, the coronavirus has brought the digital health sector 10 years of change in 10 days, but this week also brought us a reminder that some things haven't changed all that much. We refer to a return to the old normal, in which state health departments regularly struggle to procure and implement clinical IT systems large and small, as the repeated tendering for a statewide chemotherapy prescribing system in South Australia has shown us. It did it again this week.

Significant under-investment in IT systems and holding on to legacy platforms for far too long is also a constant refrain. This week, the New Zealand Ministry of Health released a current-state assessment of NZ's health assets, including buildings, infrastructure and IT, and it's not a pretty sight. The ministry is estimating that the DHBs will need $2.3 billion over the next 10 years to fix some of their legacy problems and reap the benefits of digital health systems, although even that seems a bit unambitious.

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DHBs will need $2.3 billion over 10 years to fix legacy IT systems

12 June 2020

New Zealand's district health boards will need $2.3 billion over the next 10 years to bring their clinical and administrative IT systems up to scratch, the Ministry of Health estimates.

A current-state assessment of health assets report released this week as part of the National Asset Management Programme (NAMP) shows that based on 2018 DHB capital estimates, $14 billion of investment will also be required for buildings and infrastructure.

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SA Health re-tenders for chemotherapy prescribing system

11 June 2020

The South Australian Department of Health has gone back to the market for its long-promised enterprise chemotherapy prescribing system (ECPS), which was first promised in 2010 but has yet to be procured.

The lack of an electronic system was partially blamed for a chemotherapy dosing scandal in 2014 and 2015 that saw 10 patients with leukaemia receive half doses of chemotherapy.

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Allscripts activates three more BOSSnet sites in WA

11 June 2020

EMR vendor Allscripts has extended its footprint in Western Australia with a further three activations of its BOSSnet digital medical record (DMR) platform.

The Port Hedland and Karratha Health Campuses in the Pilbara have completed their transition to digital records while Bunbury St John of God Hospital now has read-access to Bunbury Hospital's BOSSnet DMR.

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Darren Stanley joins data science start-up Byte IQ

11 June 2020

Former Citadel Group CEO Darren Stanley has joined data science start-up firm Byte IQ as a senior strategic advisor.

A sister company to Sydney-based IT services firm REND Tech Associates, Byte IQ aims to help healthcare clients become more efficient through the benefits of data science. Capabilities include business intelligence solutions and data warehousing, big data solutions, data anonymisation and machine learning solutions.

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Christine Hall appointed CEO of Pinnacle Ventures

11 June 2020

Christine Hall, who took on the role of interim chief executive of Ventures, the innovation arm of North Island primary health organisation Pinnacle, in April, has been appointed permanent CEO.

Ms Hall joined the not-for-profit in October 2019 as a general manager supporting the Health Care Home and Patient Access Centre (PAC) and xcrania teams and takes over from John Macaskill-Smith, who led the organisation for three years and was CEO of Pinnacle itself for eight.

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NSW Health moves ahead with statewide telestroke service

10 June 2020

NSW Health has begun the roll-out of the $21.7 million telestroke service it announced last year, promising to expand the service to up to 23 sites across the state over the next three years.

The service has been piloted since 2017 at Hunter New England, Central Coast and Mid North Coast local health districts, connecting local clinicians with specialist neurologists from Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital.

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TurboGrouper now grouping with SimDay

10 June 2020

EIS Health Data Solutions has integrated its TurboGrouper clinical coding and grouping software solution with ACSS Health's patient administration system SimDay.

TurboGrouper has search capabilities that allow clinical coders to quickly select codes accurately and efficiently. Grouping of coded medical records into diagnosis related groups (DRGs) is the basis for activity based funding (ABF).

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Need for speed means Bluetooth tracing apps not much use: researchers

9 June 2020

The need to contact people who may have been exposed to the coronavirus in a hurry means enhanced manual contact tracing apps like Australia's COVIDSafe might not be much use, Australasian researchers say.

The apps also need to have high enough uptake to be able to reduce the burden on manual contact tracing workforces and Australia's target may be too low at 40 per cent, they say.

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Centre for Online Health tracking telehealth consult numbers

9 June 2020

The University of Queensland's Centre for Online Health has set up a webpage to track Medicare-funded telehealth activity, with the first month of data showing a huge increase in telehealth consults since the outbreak of COVID-19.

In March, 1.1 million telehealth consultations were delivered with more than 56,000 mental health services given by phone or video conference. The Australian Department of Health made temporary item numbers available on March 13, with more introduced in April.

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International health IT week in review: June 7

7 June 2020

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending June 7: Lancet study retracted in face of growing data set scandal, inappropriate access to EMRs, drive-through service for pacemakers, dodgy COVID-19 apps, EMR safety, EMR rolls out during pandemic, machine learning for historical data, non-contact patient monitoring

A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling
Science ~ Kelly Servick and Martin Enserink ~ 02/06/2020

A study published on 22 May in The Lancet used hospital records procured by a little-known data analytics company called Surgisphere to conclude that coronavirus patients taking chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were more likely to show an irregular heart rhythm—a known side effect thought to be rare—and were more likely to die in the hospital.


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Signed, sealed, delivered

5 June 2020

It was a big week in primary care this week as electronic prescribing ratcheted up, secure messaging got a boost and a private equity firm played a blinder and snapped up a practice management software vendor from under everyone's noses. It ended with an emerging scandal in international health research, as The Lancet was forced to retract an article amid what appears to be a fabricated data set used in a now infamous hydroxychloroquine study for COVID-19.

The week got off to an interesting start with pharmacy software vendor Minfos announcing it was working with fellow EBOS Group company TerryWhite Chemmart to pilot electronic prescription capabilities in the regional NSW town of Armidale. NSW and Victoria are among several jurisdictions that have passed regulations allowing eScripts to be issued and dispensed, and later in the week PMS vendor Zedmed got together with Chemist Warehouse, Simple Retail's Aquarius dispensing system and the prescription exchanges eRx and MediSecure to test out their eScript capabilities in two Melbourne general practices and two pharmacies.

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Prescription written, dispensed and delivered without patient leaving home

5 June 2020

A live trial of electronic prescribing in Melbourne has allowed a patient to be seen by his GP via telehealth, receive an electronic script token on his phone that he then forwarded to his pharmacy by text, and have his medication delivered to his home just hours later.

In what is one of the first trials of ePrescribing in primary care in Australia, Beaumaris resident Alf Frommer was offered a telehealth consultation this week by his GP, Kachig Malyan of Bluff Road Medical Centre in Sandringham.

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Growth in eReferrals at Peninsula Health as faxes gradually phased out

4 June 2020

Victoria's Peninsula Health has seen the volume of electronic referrals to its outpatients department grow from five per cent to over 40 per cent over the last eight months following the introduction of a new secure messaging system.

Peninsula Health worked with clinical software vendor Global Health to install its MasterCare+ referral management system and to roll out the ReferralNet secure messaging system to local GPs.

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Royal Melbourne harnesses REDCap for home monitoring during COVID-19

4 June 2020

A team from Royal Melbourne Hospital's emergency department has created a platform for home monitoring patients for COVID-19 symptoms using the REDCap data collection tool, and is offering its adaptation for free to other hospitals.

The platform allows the hospital to send an SMS prompt twice a day to patients at home to submit their heart rate, temperature and oxygen saturation, store and analyse these vital signs and alert staff to patients that should be reviewed because of high or low readings.

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Zedmed to release eScript functionality in v32 with live tests in progress

3 June 2020

Practice management software vendor Zedmed is releasing version 32 of its system featuring electronic prescription functionality this week, and also plans to release a free, standalone version of the software later in June to allow practices that don't have eScript capabilities to use it for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Zedmed and the Medical One group are also involved in two live tests being held in Melbourne today along with prescription exchange services eRx and MediSecure, a Chemist Warehouse pharmacy using the chain's in-house dispensing system as well as another pharmacy using Simple Retail's Aquarius dispensing system.

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Private equity firm buys Medtech Global; ManageMyHealth spun out

3 June 2020

The owners of New Zealand's market leading practice management system vendor Medtech Global have sold the business to Australian private equity firm Advent Partners and health technology advisory firm Acclivis for an undisclosed sum, but will retain ownership of its ManageMyHealth personal health platform.

Acclivis managing director Geoff Sayer, a former managing director of Clanwilliam Health ANZ and Toniq, will become Medtech's new chief executive.

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Virtual paediatric diabetes clinics, virtual Pilates classes for rehab in South Island

2 June 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a rapid growth in the use of telehealth, with clinicians in New Zealand's South Island expanding online care into a number of areas, including multidisciplinary paediatric diabetes clinics and virtual Pilates sessions for stroke rehabilitation groups.

Nelson Marlborough District Health Board has gone from an average of 13 telehealth consultations per week to 766, while the Canterbury DHB Community Stroke Rehab Service has been able to add new initiatives, especially for people living in rural areas.

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National roll-out of digital diabetes education by SMS or email

2 June 2020

The National Association of Diabetes Centres (NADC) has partnered with Western Sydney Diabetes and patient education specialists Healthily to enable NADC member organisations around Australia to send diabetes education materials to patients via SMS and email.

The NADC Patient Education Resource Library (PERL) uses Healthily's GoShare content bundling and distribution functionality and provides members with access to Healthily’s library of patient education resources that can be sent in digital format to patients with diabetes.

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HealthLink to provide whole of state secure messaging platform for SA Health

1 June 2020

Secure messaging vendor HealthLink has won a contract with SA Health to implement a whole of state secure messaging solution, with a pilot to be held in the next couple of months.

The solution will handle the exchange of clinical documents such as discharge summaries and eReferrals between the state's hospitals and community healthcare providers, and will also replace SA Pathology's results messaging engine, which is at the end of its life.

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Minfos pilots electronic prescription workflow at TerryWhite Chemmart

1 June 2020

Pharmacy software vendor Minfos has worked with a TerryWhite Chemmart pharmacy in regional NSW to pilot its electronic prescription workflow, with the first eScript dispensed last week.

Minfos plans to release the new functionality to subscribers free of charge as part of the June update of the software. Both Minfos and TerryWhite Chemmart are part of the EBOS Group.

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International health IT week in review: May 31

31 May 2020

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending May 31: Unproven AI for COVID-19, patients want access to everything, digital health stocks surging, digital travails for South Africa, nurse robots for COVID-19, stress app for healthcare workers, Google Cloud COVID data, smart health stations, Fitbit's COVID-19 wearables study, virtual paramedics, wearable sensor for respiratory rate, phasing out pagers

Hundreds of AI solutions proposed for pandemic, but few are proven
MedCity News ~ Elise Reuter ~ 28/05/2020

With hundreds of research articles describing the use of artificial intelligence or machine learning, many of them preprints, it can be difficult to sort out which ones are most effective.


The future of APIs first depends on building value for patient access
Healthcare IT News ~ Susan Morse ~ 27/05/2020

Patients want access to everything, according to focus groups interviewed by the Pew Charitable Trusts.


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Ease on restrictions as data analysis ramps up

29 May 2020

The NZ Ministry of Health had the pleasure to announce today that for the seventh day in a row, no new cases of COVID-19 had been detected in the country. There is no one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19 and there is just one case still active. So successful has lockdown been for New Zealand in curtailing COVID (and romantic activity) that some are keen to try to stamp out other infections too.

The news comes as restrictions on people's activities are further eased in New Zealand and Australia, with Western Australia announcing today that it would implement a two square metre per person capacity rule for venues, replacing the previous four square metre rule in force elsewhere. It is to the absolute credit of healthcare authorities, healthcare workers and the governments of both countries that we have managed this pandemic so well.

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ManageMyHealth adds PROMs functionality to telemedicine platform

28 May 2020

Clinical software vendor ManageMyHealth is renewing its push into the hospital sector with its integrated telemedicine solution, adding patient reported outcomes measurement (PROMs) functionality to the portal to hospitals reduce outpatient waiting times and no shows by enabling virtual clinics.

The functionality was initially designed for a clinical trial ManageMyHealth conducted with Victoria's Peninsula Health, Curtin University and the CSIRO to manage patients with chronic heart failure to prevent unnecessary re-admissions. It has since been used for virtual arrhythmia clinic appointments delivered through a mobile device for follow-up of patients after catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF).

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NZ releases Âwhina app for up-to-date COVID-19 information for health sector

28 May 2020

The New Zealand Ministry of Health has released a mobile app tailored for healthcare workers to give them up to date access to information on COVID-19.

The Âwhina app allows staff to filter content to find what is relevant to their area of work by choosing preferences for DHB region and area of the health sector and also includes access to HealthPathways.

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Patients’ embrace of telehealth leads to calls for permanent reforms

27 May 2020

The majority of patients offered a telehealth consultation both before and during the coronavirus pandemic have used telehealth and most viewed the service as good quality, a survey by the Consumers Health Forum has found.

The survey backs calls made last week by the Australian Medical Association for COVID-19 telehealth MBS items to be made a permanent feature of the health system as patients embrace telehealth services.

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PKS buys Pavilion Health to build complementary solutions for labs and hospitals

27 May 2020

ASX-listed Pacific Knowledge Systems (PKS) has bought fellow Australian health technology company Pavilion Health with plans to provide a unified solution for pathology and hospital customers include invoice audit, code check, clinical decision support and risk management of incidents and products.

PKS offers a subscription-based clinical decision support system called RippleDown Expert that is used by pathologists for interpretations and treatment recommendations. It also markets a solution called RippleDown Audit that enables multiple departments within a laboratory to audit data in real-time, flagging suspected errors.

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Early June release for Best Practice eScript functionality in most states and territories

26 May 2020

Best Practice Software plans to release its electronic prescription capability in the next version of its Bp Premier practice management system, although eScripts are not yet legal prescriptions in all states and territories.

BP will release Jade service pack 3 (SP3) in early June, making eScripts available to users in NSW, Victoria, the ACT, the Northern Territory and Tasmania. The company is working towards approval for eScripts with Western Australia, but recommends that users from Queensland and South Australia check with their state health department.

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ACC funds roll out of Conporto harm reduction system to New Zealand GPs

25 May 2020

The Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) is funding the roll out of the Conporto Event Detection & Mitigation (EDM) system to all Kiwi GPs to help reduce medication-related harm events.

Conporto EDM is triggered by an appointment, a prescription, an ED triage or other encounter and analyses the patient’s medical records in all locations at once to identify if a risk of harm is likely from contraindicated or high-risk treatments.

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BreastScreen WA uploading mammogram results to My Health Record

25 May 2020

BreastScreen WA has become the first breast screening service in Australia to connect to the My Health Record system, allowing women to see their mammogram results as soon as their test is assessed.

The service has been providing results to women electronically since last year through a portal, allowing them to download a PDF version. They can also choose to receive either an SMS or a letter, and their GP is also kept informed electronically if the patient consents.

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International health IT week in review: May 24

24 May 2020

Pulse+IT's weekly round-up of international health IT news for the week ending May 24: $9.9b for EMRs, Apple and Google API live, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, virtual access to ICU, Fitbit's plans for ventilators, tsunami of telehealth growth, AI predictions for COVID-19

Hospital EHR spending projected to reach $9.9B by 2024
Healthcare IT News ~ Kat Jercich ~ 21/05/2020

Despite budgetary strains from the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report predicts regulatory requirements and medical-service spending growth will benefit electronic health record vendors in the years to come.


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Hunt for the Man from SNOMED River

22 May 2020

Australia's Health Minister Greg Hunt had a nice little announcement yesterday, revealing that since March 13, there have been 10.4 million services delivered to 5.71 million patients by telehealth, with $536.5 million benefits paid, and close to 70,000 healthcare providers have used telehealth services.

It's a pretty enormous number and comes as Greg himself is being lobbied pretty hard to continue with MBS-funded telehealth in the future. GPs in particular seem to like it although they are champing at the bit over the requirement that COVID-19 patients and vulnerable groups be bulk billed. The move is on now to keep some form of publicly subsidised telehealth, with the AMA yesterday issuing a strong call for it to be retained.

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SA Health rolls out Teams to 40,000 staff in one week

21 May 2020

SA Health has rolled out the Microsoft Teams platform to more 40,000 personnel to help with communication and collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Microsoft said SA Health has made Teams available to all personnel, including clinicians and other staff who could work from home, all in the space of a week.

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Swift uptake of eOrders during lockdown in Nelson Marlborough

21 May 2020

The Nelson Marlborough region has seen a swift adoption of electronic test ordering during level 4 lockdown restrictions, with well over 80 per cent of tests now ordered electronically from pathology provider MedLab South, a jump from 25 per cent last year.

GPs in the region can use the eOrder system developed by Sysmex New Zealand, which is integrated with the Medtech, Medtech Evolution, MyPractice and Indici practice management systems.

eOrders provides a direct interface into MedLab South's Ultra laboratory information system. Clinicians in the region also have access to test results through Sysmex's Eclair clinical data repository which is integrated into the South Island's Health Connect South (HCS) and HeathOne shared care record systems.

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HiNZ forced to cancel November conference

21 May 2020

Health Informatics New Zealand (HiNZ) has been had to cancel its 2020 national conference, which was due to be held in November in Hamilton.

HiNZ CEO Kim Mundell said in an email to members that running a large conference required a significant upfront investment and there was still uncertainty over whether delegates would be allowed to attend or large crowds able to gather together.

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Survey of software vendors for aged and community care benchmarking

20 May 2020

The Aged Care Industry IT Council (ACIITC) is surveying software and technology vendors servicing the aged and community care sectors as part of its CARE-IT project, which will provide a benchmark for aged care provider technology capabilities.

The survey of vendors follows one for the industry that was released last month, and is aimed at discovering the range of technologies and services available to the sector from the vendor community.

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New Zealand releases QR scan contact tracing app for COVID-19

20 May 2020

The New Zealand Ministry of Health has released a contact tracing app that provides a digital diary to allow people to remember locations they have visited and let the National Close Contact Service (NCCS) get in touch if the user is identified as a close contact of someone who has COVID-19.

Called NZ COVID Tracer, it has been developed by Kiwi company Rush Digital and uses the Amazon Web Services platform.

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West Hume Region to roll out DXC’s Care Suite patient administration system

19 May 2020

Victoria's West Hume Region will roll out DXC Technology's Care Suite patient administration system (PAS) to replace the existing system used in its five health services in what is one of the first enterprise hospital systems in Australia to be delivered on an as-a-service cloud model.

The West Hume Region (WHR) joins the Central Hume Partnership (CHP) in implementing Care Suite and the two regions will work collaboratively on the roll out. Central Hume announced in February that it had chosen Care Suite with the aim of going live in July 2021. West Hume is scheduled to go live in September 2021.

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Orion Health building national algorithm hub for New Zealand

19 May 2020

Auckland-headquartered Orion Health has been awarded funding by New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to build and deploy an algorithm hub that will provide infrastructure, tooling and resources to support modelling, risk prediction and forecasting throughout New Zealand’s COVID-19 response.

New Zealand is aiming to become the first country to deploy a national algorithm management solution. Orion Health said it hopes to provide value beyond the current pandemic response.

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Opinion: telehealth is not quite the colt from old Regret but it sure as hell has got away

18 May 2020

Telehealth has bolted away as fast as the colt from old Regret as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt, says he wants telehealth to continue post pandemic, but for that to happen, the industry will need to offer more than just ‘courage in our quick impatient tread’, as the ode goes.

We will need to understand and support the government’s need to break in the colt, saddle and hold it on a tight rein, because the sustainability of Medicare depends on it.

How to do that? Well, the Man from Snowy River, though a wonderful story, can’t tame Medicare, but a basic rule of data can: collect data used to care for the patient at the point of care, not as a separate fiscal claim. In this way, administrative overheads are reduced and real data from the patient’s care are used as the evidence for claiming.

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Queensland now live with digital script capability

18 May 2020

Queensland has made the necessary changes to regulations to allow PBS medicines to be dispensed with a digital script as well as paper, with the state joining the other jurisdictions to allow doctors to send a script directly to a pharmacy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Steven Miles said the change will better align Queensland with the special arrangements announced by the federal government allowing the supply of PBS medicines through a digital image.

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95pc of public pathology labs now connected and uploading to My Health Record

18 May 2020

Ninety-five per cent of public pathology laboratories in Australia are now connected to the My Health Record, according to new figures from the Australian Digital Health Agency.

All public labs in NSW, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory are connected – some have been uploading test reports since 2017 – with a small number in Victoria and the ACT still to connect.

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