Healthcare management platform PracticeHub by Avant has developed a new app that reminds healthcare practitioners about the renewal of their registrations with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra).

WHAT IT DOES

The Ahpra Alerts app, which works in the background of the PracticeHub system, synchronises with the regulatory agency’s database, enabling healthcare organisations to check on their staff’s registration statuses. It also sends notifications to their staff about their registrations.

The app automates information collection from the 15 health and medical boards overseeing the registrations of health workers, including doctors, allied health professionals and nurses. It comes as a free addition for current subscribers of the PracticeHub Core software. 

PracticeHub’s platform is currently being used in over 900 medical organisations across Australia.

WHY IT MATTERS

"The new app streamlines what is currently a very manual and error-prone exercise," Avant’s Technology in Practice CEO Martin Edwards said in a statement.

PracticeHub says the app reduces the administration burden for practice staff, as well as compliance risks which may arise as a result of registration lapses.

"Healthcare organisations have an obligation to ensure their practitioners are appropriately registered. By automating this process, our Ahpra Alerts app ensures organisations keep on top of their practitioners’ registration status throughout the year, not just annually at renewal, which has been the only practical solution for many organisations until now," Edwards said.

THE LARGER TREND

The app release comes after PracticeHub introduced an app that manages doctors’ annual certificates of insurance, which ultimately helps reduce organisations’ medico-legal risks from manually collecting COIs. Using the COI app, a doctor can save time by opting in to automate the collection and validation of their certificate of insurance, uploading it directly to their own records.

ON THE RECORD

"Using the app within our PracticeHub system not only increases efficiency, it makes medical practice and its management safer for practitioners, practices and, importantly, patients," Edwards said.