The Australian Digital Health Agency is partnering with Australian software organisations to design world leading software for specialists.
The Partnership
As reported, the Agency has provided nine specialist software vendors with AU$ 40,000 to complete designs that seamlessly and securely integrate the My Health Record into their current systems to bring benefits to specialists, such as cardiologists or anaesthetists.
In addition to funding, the Agency will provide design expertise to work with each vendor’s design teams to co-produce improvements in design with their users.
The software organisations will reportedly work with the Agency, following an open approach to market, and specialists to develop these designs over the coming months.
Many specialists already use My Health Record through software systems they use in public and private hospitals.
Benefits
Having easy access to the My Health Record system in their private clinics as well will ensure a more complete picture of a patient is available during specialist consultations and improve continuity across care settings.
Having real-time access will enable specialists to make more informed decisions about patient care and ultimately improve patient outcomes.
Specialists play a key role in diagnosing and managing complex health conditions, increasingly as part of a care team.
The CEO of a software provider for medical specialists in Australia shared that the collaborative design initiatives will be welcome news for specialists.
They are working closely with the Agency, to advocate on behalf of the customers and guaranteeing that their needs are being met.
This initiative is a positive step forward in this process for so many reasons. For one, it will it improve the patient experience.
Secondly, it will help bridge the gap between medical specialists and other healthcare professionals in the end-to-end management of patient information, which will ultimately improve health outcomes for patients.
The Agency Chief Operating Officer divulged that part of the challenge is designing solutions that meet the needs of specialists, which comprise a hugely diverse group of clinicians.
Australian specialists are world leaders in innovation, whether in clinical techniques, robotics, or medical engineering.
Collaboration is key
The Agency wishes to support local clinical information system vendors to integrate the My Health Record into their software in a way that encourages specialists to embrace these systems in the same way they have embraced other technology.
Medical software is vital to the management of patient care in Australia. Capturing the health information of consumers will augment clinical decision making.
The integration of the members’ specialist software products with My Health Record may help both clinicians and consumers.
The Agency is working collaboratively with Industry to co-develop designs that are fit-for-purpose and draw on the software providers’ own knowledge of the sector.
The importance of this co-design is to balance the firehose of data for specialists, while ensuring important and meaningful data is presented and delivered in ways that benefit patient outcomes from more informed data-led decisions at the point of consultation.
The Agency ran an expression of interest process in May 2019.
Software developers with a clinical information system being used in at least 10 private specialist practices in Australia at 1 May 2019 were invited to apply.