Developers to design software for specialists

Monday, 08 July, 2019

Nine Australian software organisations have received $40,000 funding from the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) to develop systems that integrate My Health Record (MHR) with medical specialists’ existing clinical information platforms.

While many specialists, such as cardiologists and anaesthetists, already use MHR through private and public hospital systems, the ADHA hopes the move will help drive MHR adoption in private practices.

This would give specialists a complete view of the patient during private consultations — enabling them to make more informed decisions around patient care, according to Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ President, Associate Professor Mark Lane.

It would also help improve continuity across care settings and improve patient outcomes.

“Specialists play a key role in diagnosing and managing complex health conditions, increasingly as part of a care team,” Lane said.

“Having seamless and secure access to My Health Record at the time of a consultation will help ensure specialists are equipped with as much information about a patient as possible when making a challenging clinical decision, such as recommending a course of treatment.”

Over the coming months, the ADHA and software vendors will be consulting with specialists to optimise the systems’ design.

Medical Software Industry Association President Robert Best welcomed the collaboration.

“This is no small undertaking, but we are pleased the Agency is working collaboratively with industry to co-develop designs that are fit for purpose and draw on the software providers’ own knowledge of the sector. The importance of this co-design is to balance the firehose of data for specialists, while ensuring important and meaningful data is presented and delivered in ways that benefit patient outcomes from more informed data-led decisions at the point of consultation.”

The selected software developers had to have a clinical information system implemented in at least 10 Australian private specialist practices at 1 May 2019.

These include: