Alfred Health, the main healthcare provider in the inner southeast of Melbourne, is now live with Alcidion's Miya Precision modules for improving patient flow and bed management. 

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

Alcidion was initially contracted to implement electronic patient journey boards at Alfred Health in May 2022. Its Miya Flow solution, which is integrated with Alfred's EMR, consolidates and presents an intuitive view of real-time data from various systems, enabling proactive referral management and discharge planning. 

The Miya Access solution was further added to provide end-to-end bed management workflows. It promotes efficient communication and transfer of patient flow information between ward or department staff and the Bed Assignment Office. 

Later, Miya Command was implemented to work on the background, providing wards and departments with an overview of upcoming patient volume, patient movements, bottlenecks and discharge barriers.

WHY IT MATTERS

Alfred Health envisioned having a command centre which can support the oversight and management of patient flow and care pathways across its hospitals, as well as serve as the foundation of remote care for patients at home.

"Being able to integrate patient information across different systems and have greater access to real-time information to better manage patient flow was a key driver for us," Alfred Health Chief Digital Health Officer Amy McKimm told HealthcareIT News.

While the modules' integration with Alfred Health's EMR and PAS became a significant challenge during the implementation, they were still able to proceed with the go-live after nine months.

Miya Precision is now providing Alfred staff with an understanding of patients' status across all facilities in real-time, "without relying on telephone and messaging systems." The information these modules display is also informing hospital operations and discharge planning. At present, work is still ongoing to optimise the design and functionality of the platform.

"As we put away our manual whiteboards and bed allocation processes we expect to see improvements in bed management, less [data] duplication, and therefore greater efficiency achieved," McKimm added.

THE LARGER TREND

Late last year, Alcidion started deploying its Miya Precision tools to more care settings of the Australian Defence Force as part of its extended partnership with Leidos, the consortium that was tasked to deliver digital health technologies to the force.

NT Health, which is one of the early adopters of the original Miya platform, also extended its contract with Alcidion last year to upgrade to the latest FHIR-based platform, which includes both Miya Flow and Miya Access modules.