Australia's largest private hospital group, Ramsay Health Care, announced it has signed a multi-year digital network and telecommunications services deal with Optus Business.
Optus will provide voice and data services for Ramsay’s facilities across the country, giving healthcare professionals high-speed data services, streamlined network migration transitions and enhanced billing systems designed to improve accuracy.
With 72 hospitals and day surgery units, Ramsay Health Care Australia admits more than 1.1 million patients and employs more than 30,000 people — the health system also recently launched a mobile app to support its mental health patients after they leave the clinic.
“Technology, connectivity and digitisation is transforming the way we all access healthcare and we look forward to working with Ramsay to advance their critical services and future business growth,” Simon Vatcher, managing director of Optus Business, said in a statement. “Providing exceptional customer service is something both Optus and Ramsay are passionate about and is at the centre of this collaboration.”
In addition to its range of private hospitals, Ramsay operates four public facilities in Australia, including the Joondalup Health Campus, a teaching hospital licensed for more than 700 beds in Western Australia, Mildura Base Hospital, Noosa Hospital and Peel Health Campus.
The company also established a community pharmacy brand, which operates more than 35 in-house pharmacy departments and dispensaries, as well as a retail franchise operation which supports more than 55 community franchise pharmacies.
“Enhancing doctors’ connectedness, patient experience and hospital performance will result in a better delivery of health services, Ramsay chief information officer John Sutherland said in a statement. “Our partnership with Optus can help us manage today’s risks, and capture tomorrow’s opportunities as we continue to evolve our operations to deliver the best patient outcomes.”
Sutherland also noted the agreement would provide critical connectivity for key areas, many of which are currently underserved.
The announcement comes as health systems across Australia are making investments to improve connectivity and service as part of a larger digital transformation.
In April, networking services specialist NEC Australia announced it would upgrade more than 500 health sites by 2020 for the Western Australia (WA) Department of Health, as part of their HealthNext ICT transformation program.
The company had previously been selected to help WA Health transition its wide area network (WAN) services in metropolitan and regional areas to the GovNet unified communication network.
Meanwhile, medical imaging IT and cybersecurity company Sectra recently landed a $94 million deal with NSW Health to provide an imaging IT system for Australia’s largest public health system.
The deal with the Swedish company follows a six-month proof of concept that began in May 2018, and Sectra will now begin to roll out a statewide enterprise radiology information system and picture archiving and communication system (RIS-PACS).
