Four months after opening its doors, the clinical and enterprise ICT systems at the new $630 million Bendigo Hospital are on track, with plans for the implementation of InterSystems' TrakCare electronic medical record in full flight, a messaging platform described as a work of art rolling out, and hundreds of Microsoft Surface Pro devices being deployed for use in write-up bays, at the bedside and at home.

The jewel in the healthcare crown of regional Victoria opened its doors on January 24, with a digital medical record (DMR) using eForms technology from Vitro and a scanning solution from Kofax currently being used as the hospital gears up for the first phase of the full EMR roll-out, which is expected to get under way in November.

Bendigo Health CIO and executive director of information services Bruce Winzar said the opening of the hospital had gone pretty much without incident, with 170-odd patients being transferred from the old hospital to the new site over about six hours. They were admitted to a hospital featuring a converged network supporting a host of new enterprise-wide applications, including real-time location services, real-time automated meal ordering, new nurse calls systems, enterprise messaging and a new integration engine.