Tender open for new ACT Digital Health Record

The ACT Government is calling for tenders for the territory’s new Digital Health Record (DHR) — a platform intended to complement My Health Record by storing and supplying more granular patient information.

According to the government’s website, this would include details on: observations performed by clinicians; who administered medication and when; and output from medical devices such as infusion pumps or blood pressure monitors.

It comes as part of the government’s Digital Health Strategy, released in May 2019, which aims to help ACT healthcare providers and patients take advantage of new technologies and medical advances.

Already, the government has allocated $106 million over eight years towards the project in the 2019–20 ACT Budget and a further $41 million from the 2018–19 Budget.

According to the government, the successful vendor will provide, support and maintain the DHR solution over an initial 10-year contract period and work with the government to ensure the DHR remains contemporary and meets the ACT community’s evolving needs.

Sandra Cook, Acting Chief Information Officer for the ACT Health Directorate, said the DHR is an important project for the ACT health system.

“[The DHR] will ensure a single point of access to patient information across public hospitals and health services,” Cook said.

“It will support the other digital systems that we have put in place in recent years to improve the care the community received. And it will also assist us in consolidating other paper and legacy electronic clinical records, of which there are more than 250 currently operating due the rapid innovations in medical technology over the past decade.”

Cook added that a key factor in progressing the DHR project will be meeting the community’s expectations about privacy of information and managing patient confidentiality. This will be especially important as territory citizens can’t opt out, unlike with My Health Record, according to the government’s website.

“Much of the information to be contained in the new record is already captured through paper records and various clinical IT systems. What the new record will do is make it easier for the clinical workforce to access the information to get the best treatment outcomes for their patients,” Cook said.

“One of the highest priorities for this project is ensuring we are building up the protections around health information that consumers expect in this digital age, and this will continue to be a key focus.

“There are also strong privacy provisions in the Health Records (Privacy and Access) Act 1997 that protect patient confidentiality.”

Vendors can submit tenders until 3 October 2019 via the Tenders ACT website.

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