2012 is set to be a busy year in eHealth with the launch of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) only 5 months away. From July, 2012 all Australians can opt-in and register for a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR).

The PCEHR will provide a consolidated view of health information which can be shared with trusted healthcare practitioners. This will enable more rapid access to up to date health information for the right people at the right time.

The following short videos explain the benefits eHealth will bring, for you as an individual and for aged care:

eHealth: What it means for me – click here.

eHealth for Aged Care – click here.

iCare is committed to the Government’s eHealth strategy and is developing key eHealth enablers, such as Individual Healthcare Identifiers, in our software so they are available in our next major release, version 2.10 in April 2012.

MedView Update

As we have discussed in previous eHealth updates, iCare is the aged care partner for the Government’s eHealth MedView project. We were pleased to see recently that the Australian Association of Practice Managers (AAPM) has announced that they are partnering with MedView and eRx in recognition of their importance to Australia’s eHealth future.

National President of the AAPM, Brett McPherson, said “The AAPM is joining the MedView project and endorsing eRx because of their integral role in Australia’s eHealth future. MedView represents a tremendous advance in medicines management, and ePrescribing is a vital link in the secure sharing of consented data required to achieve this. The practice management profession has a long history of leadership in healthcare management, and we now have a significant opportunity to dramatically advance medicines management and help shape Australia’s eHealth future.”

To read the complete media release click here.

2011 has been a busy year in the eHealth space in preparation for the launch of the Federal Government’s Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) in July, 2012.

The impact of legislation passed in 2010 that enabled the use of Healthcare Identifiers (HIs) – unique 16 digit numbers that will guarantee the identification of sensitive health information of an individual – became a reality in 2011 with projects such as MedView.

MedView will see consented patient’s consolidated medication histories made available to pharmacies, GPs, hospitals and aged care facilities. IHI’s will ensure the right health information is associated with the right individual in this repository.

To further support current and future eHealth implementations in aged care, the National eHealth Transition Authority (NeHTA) has called for expressions of interests from aged care software developers to establish a vendor panel. Financial assistance will be offered to successful panellists who will be required to upgrade their existing software to provide the required functionality to meet NeHTA specifications.

This will help ensure aged care providers have the right information, software and tools to take advantage of the efficiencies and opportunities eHealth and the launch of the PCEHR will provide.

Click here to read the complete article.

On a final note, in 2012 it is iCare’s 10th birthday and we look forward to celebrating this milestone with you and keeping you up to date on eHealth developments throughout the year.

From July 2012, all Australians who choose to can register for a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR). A PCEHR will provide a consolidated view of health information which can be shared with trusted healthcare practitioners to support the delivery of safer, higher quality, more equitable and sustainable healthcare.

At iCare we have been working proactively on our software in preparation for the PCEHR roll-out so our customers will be best prepared to take advantage of the efficiencies and opportunities eHealth will provide.

iCare’s involvement in the Federal Government’s Wave 2 MedView project has enabled the adoption of eHealth standards into the iCare software. iCare is responsible for the aged care segment of MedView and will be utilising our software to directly access the medications repository by implementing the Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) service.

MedView is a national medications repository that will enable healthcare providers to view a combined list of consenting patients’ prescribed and dispensed medications, from across community, hospital and aged care settings. An IHI is a unique 16 digit number that will ensure the right health information is associated with the right individual in this repository.

For the first time, and only if a patient’s consent is obtained, healthcare professionals will be able to see their patient’s combined medications providing a clearer picture of a patient’s medications history. This repository will support decision making about a patient’s healthcare needs and enable better communication between their care team.

Click here for more information about MedView.

What is Telehealth?

From 1 July 2011, Medicare Australia introduced Telehealth, an initiative that aims to address some of the barriers to accessing medical services for Australians in eligible Telehealth areas.

Telehealth services offer real benefits for Australians. This initiative will help Australians in remote, regional and outer metropolitan areas, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and Australians in residential aged care to access specialist medical services earlier and without the time and expense of travelling.

How will Telehealth work in aged care?

As an example, a GP refers a resident to a specialist, who decides the consultation may be done by video conference. The Residential Aged Care Facility (RACF) has a room set-up with audio and video equipment which is connected to the internet so the specialist can hear and see the aged care resident. The consult occurs and removes the need for the specialist to attend the RACF or for the resident to leave to visit the specialist.

What are the financial incentives for RACFs?

The Government introduced financial incentives, from 1 July 2011, to encourage and support the provision of Telehealth services to Australians in RACFs throughout Australia.

Two types of incentives are available for RACFs:

This is a one-off payment to encourage eligible RACFs to provide appropriate facilities and resources
to host telehealth consultations.

These incentives encourage eligible RACFs to provide ongoing hosting services for their residents.

Information regarding the financial incentives eligible RACFs are entitled to can be found at:
Telehealth overview for Residential Aged Care Facilities

For More Information:

MSB Online

Questions and answers have been prepared to assist residential aged care facilities in understanding the new MBS items and incentive payments introduced under the ‘Connecting Health Services With the Future: Modernising Medicare by Providing Rebates for Online Consultations’ initiative:
Questions and Answers for Residential Aged Care Facilities

Medicare Australia

Medicare has also provided information regarding Telehealth for health care professionals on their website.

If you have any questions please contact iCare’s Product Strategy and Development Manager, Chaolin Chang on 03 9652 8100 or via email changc@icare.com.au

Twilight Aged Care have come a long way since 2004 when a comprehensive, enterprise-wide analysis revealed a number of gaps relating to their IT and business goals. Inconsistencies in documenting delivered care had resulted in a loss of subsidy income and the classification of some residents may have been affected with care possibly not being delivered and not being as effectively documented as needed.

Over the last six years Twilight Aged Care have been one of the leaders in adopting innovative, integrated technology to deliver the best in care and value to all parts of their business.

Twilight Aged Care’s implementation of various IT solutions has resulted in improved funding, increased staff productivity, improved quality of care and greater.

To read the full article and learn how Twilight Aged Care achieved significant business benefits from utilising technology click here.

iCare now supports Small Business Server 2011

iCare have undergone testing with Windows Small Business Server (SBS) 2011 and can now confirm we have added support for this server operating system. Any customers running iCare 2.9 SP2 or later have the option to upgrade/migrate to this operating system. This reaffirms iCare’s ongoing commitment to keep aligned with new Microsoft technologies and version release.

Click here for instructions that will enable iCare to work on SBS 2011.

If you have further enquiries please feel free to contact the iCare Helpdesk on 03 9652 8100.

In the 2010/11 Federal Budget, the Australian Government announced that they would spend $467 million over two years to develop and launch a personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) for every Australian who wants one. The aim of the PCEHR is that by July 2012 every Australian will be able to access his or her healthcare records electronically. Each individual will personally control who has access to the information contained within their record.

The Benefits to Aged Care

There is a constant flow of information about eHealth in Australia, but what does it mean and what is being done to ensure the aged care industry is part of Australia’s eHealth journey?

Together with the Federal Government’s telehealth initiatives and the roll out of the National Broadband Network (NBN), the PCEHR aims to provide better health services and healthcare outcomes for all Australians by enabling better access to crucial health information. This will include persons in residential aged care facilities.

In aged care, some of the potential benefits of the PCEHR include:

• the opportunity to access up-to-date health care information on an individual when they are first admitted to an aged care facility;
• continuity of care for aged care residents when transferring to, or discharging from, a hospital; and
• complex medication management.

PECHR Initiatives

The aged care sector is well positioned to play an integral role in PCEHR as many aged care providers already use IT systems to move clinical and medication information within their aged care facilities.

The PCEHR system will be implemented based upon a combination of ‘top down’ national initiatives and ‘bottom up’ lead eHealth sites. National initiatives will focus on delivering the core infrastructure components of PCEHR System, such as Healthcare Identifier (HI) service, National Authentication Service for Health (NASH), call centre for PCEHR, consumer portal and health record index services.

The bottom-up implementation program will concentrate on the provision of two waves of funding for twelve lead eHealth sites spanning different geographic and functional parts of the Australian health sector. The objectives of these sites are to deploy elements of eHealth infrastructure and standards in real world healthcare settings and to demonstrate tangible results and benefits by using eHeatlh.

The Aged Care IT Vendor Association is working closely with the Department of Health and Ageing and NEHTA to ensure that all aged care consumers and aged care providers realise the full benefits of Australia’s eHealth system, no matter which vendor software they have implemented.

To date, the Federal Government’s eHealth initiatives have been broken down into Wave 1 and Wave 2 sites. Wave 1 was announced in the second half of 2010 and involves three sites based around GP’s. The primary objective – provide a community of services for individuals using a range of community and health service providers.

The Wave 2 sites expand on this approach and aim to allow key health information exchanges between healthcare providers and specific health groups.

Nine eHealth sites were announced in Wave 2 on 29th March 2011, with one of those projects – MedView, led by FRED IT Group – involving iCare and the aged care industry. The MedView project will allow consumers and health professionals to access consented patient’s medication history via a PCEHR conformant repository.

The Aged Care Model

iCare will be responsible for the aged care segment of MedView. By providing integration to the MedView medicine repository, iCare will enable nursing staff to access prescribed and dispensed medications of an aged care resident with consent. All prescriptions and dispensing records of the resident will be securely transmitted and stored in the MedView system.

Clinicians will be able to see a combined list of prescribed and dispensed medications regardless of how many different doctors and pharmacies the patient has visited in the past. When a resident is discharged from hospital or returned from a visit to a specialist, the nursing staff in the aged care facility and pharmacist will be able to view medication prescribed by the doctor or specialist via MedView instantly.

The Participants

The aim of the project is to deploy MedView to all pharmacies and GPs in the Geelong region and to a further 10% of this target market nationally. The project will bring together a grouping of private sector eHealth organisations and vendors including GP division of Geelong, Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, Best Practice, Zedmed, FRED Health, Simple Retail, iCare, eRx Script Exchange, Microsoft, Simpl Group, Monash University Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Barwon Health.

iCare is a strong supporter of eHealth in Australia and the use of standards to move electronic health information securely within the health system, particularly as it relates to aged care. We are committed to sharing the knowledge gained from our role in representing aged care in the Wave 2 projects to ensure the aged care industry can take a leading role in the implementation of eHealth in Australia.