Hospital network Alfred Health in Victoria has onboarded and digitised the health records of their cancer patients to Oracle's EHR solution for oncology. 

WHY IT MATTERS

Alfred Health finds significant value in Oracle Oncology in helping streamline pharmacy processes, with order information pushed directly from the EHR into the pharmacy management system. It also generates barcodes for each treatment, allowing nurses to readily check that a prescribed medication goes to the right patient and at the right dosage. 

"Completely digitising and making cancer treatment information easily available in our EHR makes guiding the overall treatment plan for patients more efficient," shared Alfred Health chief pharmacy information officer Erica Tong.

Additionally, Oracle Oncology facilitates access to clinical trial opportunities and enables tracking of the progress of those enrolled in trials. 

THE LARGER TREND

The hospital network has been improving the efficiency of its pharmacy processes. It has introduced electronic prescriptions within its EHR system, which come as a barcode and are presented to a community pharmacy for dispensing. 

Alfred Health has also integrated with Oracle EHR access to the national real-time prescription monitoring system, Safescript. This allows clinicians to view the prescription history of patients who are developing signs of drug dependence. 

Moreover, it was one of the first hospitals in the country to connect digital immunisation records from its EHR with the national registry, Australian Immunisation Register.

In other related news, Northern Health, also based in Victoria, is the latest in the region to transition to digital medical records, powered by Oracle EMR. The Royal Flying Doctor Service has also moved to Oracle's cloud-based EMR system to enable the near real-time sharing of critical patient medical information.