SingHealth has recently signed a deal with Altera Digital Health for the use of the Sunrise suite of healthcare solutions across its network of health services. 

This is an extension of their previous agreement in 2017, which now continues through to 2029. As part of the latest deal, Altera will provide SingHealth with ongoing support for its EMR platform.

Formerly the Hospitals and Large Physician Practices segment of health IT provider Allscripts, Altera is offering its Sunrise platform which connects all aspects of care across different healthcare disciplines. SingHealth has been using the Sunrise Clinical Manager System since 1998.

WHY IT MATTERS

According to a press statement, the Sunrise platform will continue to be implemented by Integrated Health Information Systems (IHiS), Singapore's national health technology agency that supports SingHealth. The highly-configurable platform can adapt to SingHealth's clinical workflows and integrate with its suite of systems for interoperability. SingHealth operates four public hospitals, including the Singapore General Hospital, three community hospitals, five national specialty centres and a network of eight polyclinics.

Aside from helping strengthen its care management processes and enhance its healthcare delivery, Altera's Sunrise will also serve as an interface that the healthcare group can use to build its own healthcare IT solutions, "enabling greater expandability, flexibility, and scalability of its clinician-specific workflows that can lead to more seamless patient care".

As part of their partnership, Altera will also provide SingHealth with access to its specialised technical consulting team, which will guide them in enabling additional functionalities and efficiencies in the future.

Meanwhile, implementing Altera's EMR platform will help SingHealth manage patients’ health records "more effectively". The company claims that clinicians can use the EMR platform as an information hub to review patients' health records and care plans "with a view to improve population health outcomes". Integrated with internationally-accepted healthcare terminologies, the EMR platform can also be used to identify patterns of care and gain additional insights to optimise care delivery.

THE LARGER TREND

According to Altera, its partnership with SingHealth marks the first step of its journey in Asia-Pacific as a newly acquired entity by Harris Computer. 

Prior to its acquisition, it partnered with the South Western Sydney Primary Health Network in Australia for an interoperability project using dbMotion. After concluding its pilot in mid-2020, the project has now connected approximately 70 care sites with about 8,000 patients consenting to share their health information. 

ON THE RECORD

"As [the] healthcare needs of Singaporeans continue to evolve, SingHealth is committed to leveraging technology and digital solutions as key enablers to improve care delivery and clinical outcomes, optimise resources and enhance the patient experience," SingHealth Group CEO Ivy Ng said.