More health sites in Western Australia have moved from paper records to digital medical records by Altera Digital Health.

The Altera Opal is now live at Rockingham General Hospital, Murray District Hospital, and nearby community health centres in Mandurah and Kwinana. 

Formerly called BOSSnet, the digital medical record is operational in more than 100 sites in Australia and is also deployed as a document management solution as part of the Sunrise Platform of Health.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

The Health Support Services has been working closely with the WA Department of Health, health service providers, and Altera to implement digital medical records across WA sites. 

The Altera Opal implementation, according to CIO Jonathan Smith, is a "precursor toward implementing an integrated EMR, which will further increase the electronic capturing of information at the point of care, reducing paper forms to a minimum." 

The solution was first deployed at Fremantle Hospital in 2019. 

Early this month, the WA government announced an investment of nearly A$100 million ($68 million) to complete the first phase of the statewide rollout of digital medical records. First funded in 2020, the project is being done in preparation for a full WA-wide EMR system implementation. 

ON THE RECORD

"Altera Opal has been particularly effective in WA, where it has enabled many health sites to embark on their digital journeys, and in doing so, establish an ever-growing community of health that clinicians can leverage to deliver even better healthcare," Altera APAC EVP Todd Haebich commented.

"Through its scanning and document management capabilities, it helps health sites effectively and affordably customise their deployment strategies to suit budget and healthcare needs, delivering clever workflows that support effective health information management and clinical coding. Altera Opal can also seamlessly interface with third-party software," he added.