The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) is partnering with Australian software organisations to design world leading software for specialists. ADHA has provided nine specialist software vendors with A$40,000 each to complete designs that seamlessly and securely integrate the My Health Record (MHR) into their current systems to bring benefits to specialists, such as cardiologists or anaesthetists. 

In addition to funding, ADHA will provide design expertise to work with each vendor’s design teams to co-produce improvements in design with their users. 

The nine specialist software vendors are: 
Best Practice Software
Clinic to Cloud
Clinical Computers
Genie Solutions
Intrahealth
Medical-Objects
Medical Wizard
Software for Specialists
Zedmed

The software organisations will work with ADHA and specialists to develop these designs over the coming months. ADHA ran an expression of interest process in May 2019, where software developers with a clinical information system being used in at least 10 private specialist practices in Australia at 1 May 2019 were invited to apply.

MHR DEVELOPMENTS

Some parts of the health sector have enthusiastically embraced the MHR – such as community pharmacy which has increased registrations from 20% in June 2018 to 86% in June 2019. ADHA is now turning its focus to increasing use by specialists over the next 12 months. The agency announced that in February 2019 that 9 out of 10 Australians have a MHR following the conclusion of the opt-out period.

Last month, the pathology departments of South Australia and Northern Territory have connected to MHR to provide better patient and clinician experience through the seamless flow of pathology reports.

ON THE RECORD

“Australian specialists are world leaders in innovation – whether in clinical techniques, robotics, or medical engineering. We want to support our local clinical information system vendors to integrate the MHR into their software in a way that encourages specialists to embrace these systems in the same way they’ve embraced other technology.

We won’t be specifying what changes should be made to systems. Instead, we will work vendors and their customers – the specialists themselves – to come up with designs that specialists and their practice staff will love to use, and which will benefit from the rich data provided by the My Health Record,” said Ms Bettina McMahon, Chief Operating Officer, ADHA in a statement.