IT agenda for the future

Government and industry experts have outlined a vision of an integrated health system that runs as smoothly as online banking.

The next challenge for aged care providers in the uptake and adoption of IT is to improve information-sharing with other sectors of the health industry, according to government and industry experts.

Electronic health records and prescribing have the potential to transform the health and aged care, according to the Minister for Ageing, Justine Elliot.

She told the TriState Conference in Albury that electronic transactions in healthcare could produce changes akin to those brought about by online banking.

Mrs Elliot said the Commonwealth and state governments are committed to developing a national system for electronic health records that would link aged care with the broader health system.

Through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) they have given the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) funding to develop the framework for an e-health system.

“The ultimate benefit of this will be a more effective and sustainable health and ageing sector,” Mrs Elliot said.

NEHTA is currently establishing a common language and technical standards to underpin a fully integrated system.

The group’s CEO, Peter Fleming says the foundations for an integrated national e-health record system should be in place by December this year.

Mr Fleming told TriState delegates that the authority had identified aged care as one of its priority areas for change.

The first phase of the authority’s investigations into eldercare involves electronic prescribing projects that incorporate doctors, pharmacists and aged care facilities.

“The pilots that are being conducted show that this has the potential to significantly reduce medication errors,” Mr Fleming said.

“But it’s not only the errors that are the problem with manual medication management but also the flow-on effect of those errors. If we get this right, it will reduce the number of hospital admissions from aged care,” he said.

Electronic medication management is also an important priority for industry groups.

Aged Care Industry IT Council spokesperson, Rod Young said medication solutions were the group’s top priority for the next five years.

Leave a Reply