Health IT firm Allscripts has secured a competitive tender to deliver an electronic chemotherapy prescribing system to over 20 SA Health hospitals and care facilities offering cancer treatment services across South Australia.

SA Health mentioned that the system will be planned, designed and implemented over two and a half years with initial deployment starting in mid-2022. It will be integrated with their existing EMR system from Allscripts.

WHY IT MATTERS

The system to be introduced is the iQemo solution by UK-based company iQ Health Tech. According to a press statement, it offers functionalities such as predefined regimens, prescribing, scheduling, dispensing, chemotherapy administration and reporting. 

Allscripts ANZ General Manager Todd Haebich added that the ECPS solution helps enhance patient safety through features like comprehensive chemotherapy regimen management, automatic dose calculations, allergy and sensitivity alerting, decision support linked to pathology and toxicity and drug-to-drug interaction support.

The iQemo system will fulfil SA Health's need for coordinated care of cancer patients and minimise the risk of dosing errors by providing a readable electronic drug administration chart with all drugs displayed in the order based on a treatment protocol.

Moreover, iQemo's integration with the Allscript Sunrise EMR will enable a "more complete patient record". The latter is a single-platform acute and ambulatory solution that delivers the most current information to clinicians at point-of-care delivery. Sunrise is currently installed in a number of the state's public healthcare centres such as Royal Adelaide Hospital, Flinders Medical Centre and The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. 

THE LARGER CONTEXT

In 2019, SA Health revamped the EMR system across its facilities following a review that found it failed. The key recommendation of the independent review was to install Allscripts' Sunrise EMR and Paperless Administration System. 

Allscripts EMR was recently rolled out in the emergency department facilities of public health services under the Gippsland Health Alliance in Victoria.

ON THE RECORD

"Allscripts has a detailed understanding of SA Health’s clinical, business and technical environment and will deliver the iQemo solution in partnership with iQemo experts working alongside them from the UK. This approach provides SA Health with the confidence that safe and timely delivery of the iQemo solution will be achieved," SA Health ECPS Project Director Paul Thomas said.

"The combination of our relationship with iQ Health Tech and the power and capability of  Microsoft Azure allow us to deliver an exceptional SaaS product to SA Health that has been tried and tested in the UK and that enhances both efficiency and patient safety associated with the prescribing and administration of chemotherapy," Allscripts ANZ's Haebich also stated.