The Australian Digital Health Agency’s work on the modernisation of the My Health Record system and the new HIE, along with a lot of activity in primary care, virtual care, and EMRs, were the stand-out news stories in the last quarter of the 2024 year in Australian digital health. AI was a major theme at two major conferences – HIMAA in October and the AIDH’s AI.Care in November – while the federal government rounded off the year by introducing its sharing by default legislation for My Health Record to Parliament.
The Western Australian Department of Health (DoH) kicked off the end of the year by calling for registrations of interest from electronic medical record vendors to help the department plan for the long-awaited EMR for the WA health system. The announcement has been long on the cards with a similar ROI process back in 2019, but with a boost following the release of WA Health’s digital strategy 2020-2030, which called for a phased and prioritised roll out of an EMR or equivalent by July 2029. The ROI comes in advance of a request for tender and is expected to help the DoH to gauge interest levels in providing a solution. WA is the final state to go to market for a modern EMR, with Tasmania expected to reveal its choice next year.
Also going to market was the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA), which went to tender for contractors to help build the internal technical platform capabilities and infrastructure integrations needed to enable FHIR-based interoperability for the My Health Record system. The contract, worth between $45 and $50 million, is part of the modernisation of the My Health Record system program, which will enable FHIR interoperability capabilities and the future national Health Information Exchange (HIE).
In November, ADHA announced plans to release a request for tender in 2025 for new application support and maintenance (ASM) services that will replace the current contract for the National Infrastructure Operator (NIO), which operates the My Health Record. Accenture has held the contract since the MyHR, then known as the PCEHR, was launched in 2012, operating the system on behalf of the Department of Health until responsibility for the national infrastructure was transferred to ADHA in 2016.
Almost half of Australian GPs said they feel enthusiastic when adopting new digital technologies within general practice and just 17 per cent do not, with the majority having a positive view of innovation on improving patient care, patient health outcomes and productivity. The RACGP’s Health of the Nation 2024 report found that while most GPs regularly use digital technologies – the most popular being the Australian Immunisation Register, real-time prescription monitoring and electronic prescribing – only 13 per cent said they felt well informed about the state of innovation within general practice.
In the next month, primary care provider Ochre Health and AI scribe developer Lyrebird Health released the results of a small, unofficial study on the impact of AI scribes for GPs, finding that there was some time saving and stress reduction benefits, as well as a modest improvement in medical record quality. The aim of the study was to test whether AI transcription could help reduce cognitive load and therefore reduce stress. It also wanted to see if AI could help doctors see more patients or provide more time to patients, and if it could make the medical record better.
Back in early October, DoHAC released a consultation paper on the safe and responsible use of AI in healthcare, calling for submissions from industry, clinicians and consumers on current legislative and regulatory frameworks and whether they adequately mitigate the potential for harm. The public consultation is considering questions related to the safe and responsible use of AI in Australia’s health and care, DoHAC said, as well as the question of whether AI in healthcare needs specific oversight, perhaps through an Australian body specifically dedicated to overseeing AI in healthcare.
Health Minister Mark Butler told the Victorian Healthcare Week conference that the government would soon introduce legislation to Parliament to support its ‘sharing by default’ policy, which will mandate the sharing of key health information with consumers starting with pathology and diagnostic imaging report uploads to their My Health Record. Mr Butler said penalties may apply to healthcare providers that refuse to upload results, which will see them lose out on Medicare benefits. The mandate to share pathology and imaging reports in near real time is expected to see the elimination of the seven-day rule for test result uploads to My Health Record, although this element is still up for consultation.
In late October, Medibank released a report from KPMG into hospital in the home and other virtual hospital models that found an expansion of these models of care could save $1 billion in healthcare costs in 2030, with potential savings of $6.4 billion by avoiding capital expenditure on new physical hospital infrastructure. It found that increased adoption of virtual hospitals could see more than 360,000 bed days substituted for virtual care in Australia in 2030, and with an expanded scope of care, this could substitute up to 1.2 million bed days and $1b in cost savings in 2030.
Medibank – which at the time provided hospital in the home care to SA Health through a joint venture with its Amplar Health arm and Calvary Health Care – called for a “significant expansion” of hospital care in the home across the nation to alleviate pressure on the hospital system. In December, we learned that Amplar Health would take sole responsibility for the SA Health contract, signed in 2020, with Calvary Health Care pulling out of the joint venture.
The health information management sector began gearing up for the annual HIIMAA conference, featuring presentations on how the success of the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED) has relied on a health information manager to optimise funding and implement Department of Health requirements. It also heard from HIMAA president Catherine Garvey on how the near-ubiquitous uptake of EMRs has elevated the importance of challenging HIM processes in order to facilitate evolution through the digital era; and from Beamtree chief product officer Cheryl McCullagh on Beamtree’s experiences in pilots in the UK, Australia and New Zealand on computer assisted coding and automation.
Australian Clinical Labs joined fellow pathology giants Sonic Healthcare and Healius in adopting the interoperable eRequests solution from Magentus, which will expand its national coverage to about 90 per cent of Australia’s pathology labs. The Open FHIR API standards-based solution was initially developed by Magentus’ specialist practice management division in 2023 in association with Sonic Healthcare in 2023, and then rolled out to Healius earlier this year. Medical specialists using the Genie and Gentu practice management systems can make digital referrals directly through the PMS. Patients have the flexibility to use any of the testing locations in the receiving provider’s network.
The Australasian Institute of Digital Health held its second AI.Care conference in late November, featuring presentations on the regulatory challenges of AI scribing, the use of personal health information in AI, and how the adoption of AI tools by GPs is set to transform patient experiences in coming years and is likely to lead to more meaningful patient-doctor collaboration. However, one expert said Australia’s AI development in healthcare is “far behind” the rest of the world in terms of AI clinical trials and clinical adoption of commercial AI products, and was being stymied by the absence of a reimbursement system for AI-based medical services.
Cloud-based referral management solution developer Consultmed had a big breakthrough this year when it announced in November that it had begun the implementation of its suite of digital referral solutions across South Western Sydney Local Health District (SWSLHD), which will connect six acute public hospitals and approximately 930 departments and clinical services to the community. The implementation involves integrations with the NSW Oracle Cerner EMR and PAS currently used by SWSLHD, along with the roll out of its AI-powered solution for transforming paper referrals into structured digital formats, Consultpilot AI.
Consultmed also said it planned to introduce FHIR-enabled, standards-based integrations with practice management software, powered by Microsoft Azure’s advanced technology for secure communications. The company, which is also used by Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network, will announce several big new contracts next year.
Also in November, the Australian government introduced its promised legislation to Parliament that will require certain health information to be shared with the My Health Record system, initially encompassing pathology and diagnostic imaging reports. The bill will allow the government to make rules about what information healthcare providers must share to the My Health Record system. Healthcare providers that deliver particular health services must upload health information to their patient’s record after they deliver a service in order to claim Medicare benefits. The bill states that a significant new penalty is 250 penalty units will apply to a prescribed constitutional corporation failing to register for My Health Record as required in order to ignore the new share by default requirements.
The 2024 year in digital health was rounded off by the NSW government kicking off a new virtualADULTS service in Sydney in advance of a wider roll-out to the rest of the state, using Healthdirect as the single digital front door to virtual care services across NSW. It accompanies the virtualKIDS service that went statewide last December. The NSW government is funding the virtual care initiative through a $171.4 million package announced in the state budget in June, which also included $100m for the urgent care services. The single front door strategy was first announced at the MedInfo conference in 2023 and involves using Healthdirect’s existing and new services as a single point of contact for information, assessment and referrals for unplanned, non-life-threatening healthcare needs.
Primary care
Almost half of the 31 PHNs are now using a digital health maturity assessment tool that enables them to assess the digital and data maturity of Australian general practices, aged care facilities, allied health practices and pharmacies, and suggest a plan of action to support digital change. The Kaleidoscope data insights platform has been developed by digital health consulting firm Semantic Consulting to measure digital health maturity in primary and aged care providers. The idea is to better understand and measure where healthcare providers are up to in their digital health uptake and what can be done better in terms of digital change management.
The Hunter New England and Central Coast PHN backed the installation of what it says is Australia’s first Gen 2 SiSU Mini Health Station at Timbs Pharmacy in rural Glen Innes. The SiSU Mini is a joint project between SiSU Health Group and Swinburne University’s Centre for Design Innovation and includes the features of the SiSU Health Station in a more compact unit.
Western NSW Primary Health Network is taking part in a new Healthdirect pilot of an enhanced after hours general practitioner (AHGP) support service for aged care facilities. 50 residential aged care homes (RACH) in the Far West and Western NSW regions are included in the pilot, which is available for use by registered and enrolled nurses in participating RACHs using a new dedicated phone number. The RACH Fast Track to AHGP service is intended for use when the patient’s condition or health concern can’t wait for the patient’s regular GP or they are not unwell enough for the emergency department.
Acute care
It was a huge year for Charm Evolution, the oncology information management system from Magentus. In October, St John of God Berwick Hospital went live with the system as part of a national networked implementation. The solution was piloted at Subiaco Hospital’s Bendat Family Comprehensive Cancer Centre and will now be roll out nationally at St John of God Health Care. Fiona Stanley Hospital went live in June as part of a big roll out at South Metropolitan Health Service in Perth, the same instance of which WA Country Health Service (WACHS) is also going to implement. Peninsula Health went live in November.
During the year, Magentus become Australia’s first vendor to provide ePrescribing functionality for oncology, allowing cancer care team prescribers to create electronic prescriptions within Charm and send them directly to the patient or their pharmacy. It also completed an integration with Slade Health, part of cancer care provider Icon Group, to introduce a digital ordering solution for hospital pharmacy services across Victoria, following a similar roll-out in Queensland.
Oracle Health, formerly known as Cerner, promised a new electronic medical record “built from the ground up” would be released in 2025, embedding AI across the entire clinical workflow. There is no word yet on when it will be available in markets outside the US. Oracle Health and Life Sciences executive vice president Seema Verma said the new platform was not “a refurbished EHR”, saying that “in this day and age, you can’t leverage modern technology by bolting new innovation to something built in the 1990s”. It will incorporate Oracle Health’s Clinical AI Agent, which Oracle says enables providers to reduce hours spent on documentation, ordering, and automated coding to dedicate more time to patient care.
Virtual care
Melbourne’s Northern Health built a new patient registration portal for its Victorian Virtual Emergency Department (VVED), including a user-friendly interface for patients and a dashboard for clerical staff to register patients into the iPM patient administration system and the FirstNet emergency department EMR. The portal, nicknamed ‘Reggie’, has been developed and built internally by Northern Health’s digital health team to match the workflows of VVED, saving staff time and enabling a faster registration process.
St John of God Berwick Hospital revealed it was introducing a new model of care, offering access to an emergency telehealth service on a reimbursable basis to help overcome issues for private patients seeking easier access to private healthcare services without a GP or public emergency department referral. The new Berwick telehealth service is designed for patients facing urgent but non-life-threatening medical concerns when their regular GP isn’t available. If hospital admission is required, a direct pathway to St John of God Berwick Hospital can be organised. To access the service, patients pay a $220 fee reimbursable by St John of God Berwick Hospital if the consultation results in direct admission.
Allied health
Software vendors specialising in the allied health sector were offered financial assistance to enhance their software to enable connection to My Health Record and allow allied health professionals to view and upload relevant information. As part of its allied health program, the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) will deliver a supported registration pathway for allied health professionals to connect to My Health Record through their clinical information system (CIS). A second stage to the program will add functionality allowing users to update the agency’s Provider Connect Australia as an integrated PCA publishing system.
Aged care
DoHAC announced it had engaged consultancy firm EY to run a new research project looking at the digital maturity of the aged care sector and how it differs by type of providers. The project aims to unearth the types of support and enablers that providers might need to help improve their digital maturity and the key barriers and challenges inhibiting aged care providers from improving their digital maturity. DoHAC first assistant secretary for aged care reform digital transformation and delivery, Fay Flevaras, said it was clear from the sector that there were concerns around being digitally ready for the aged care reforms that were still coming.
The introduction of monthly care statements for people living in residential aged care got underway, with 50 aged care providers now issuing taking part, DoHAC said. The statements, a recommendation by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, are summaries of the care a resident has received over the previous month, listing changes to the resident’s health or care needs and any other relevant events that occurred during that period. One solution vendor, Acredia, is already generating the statements, working with residential aged care provider Signature Care to use the software’s capabilities to generate a statement with the push of a button and no extra data input.
And in some welcome news for the stretched sector, the federal government said eligible aged care providers will be able to apply for funding of up to $10,000 to assist with the costs of any IT changes needed to prepare for the implementation of the new Aged Care Act. The act is due to come into force on July 1, 2025 and will align with the launch of the new Support at Home program. Aged care providers have been agitating for assistance with the transition, which will see a completely new regulatory model with extra reporting requirements, and the creation of a new advisory body for aged care financing.
Some of the more interesting software, apps and new players in the market that caught our eye this year included:
Pharmacy software and digital health solution vendor Fred IT has released a new digital basket feature for its MedView Flow electronic script queuing system, aiming to fill a gap between physical baskets for paper scripts and digital baskets for electronic prescriptions.
Medical specialist practice management solution vendor Magentus launched a new marketplace for its cloud-based Gentu PMS, offering what it calls a one-stop app integration experience. The Gentu Marketplace is similar to the current marketplace for Magentus’ market-leading desktop system Genie.
Best Practice Software released the latest version of its Premier clinical and practice management software, which features improved Lyrebird Scribe integration, enhanced observations and support for the upcoming Best Practice Mobile app release. Bp Premier Spectra includes support for the new electronic prescribing specifications, as well as for the General Practice in Aged Care incentive (GPACI).
Health insurer Bupa began offering members free telehealth bookings through its Blua digital health platform, which uses Doctors on Demand for 24/7 telehealth, as well as electronic prescriptions and online door-to-door chemist delivery.
Medibank announced a new partnership with Canadian healthcare customer experience platform developer League, which it says will enable better, more personalised healthcare journeys for customers using the My Medibank app. League’s data and AI-driven technology platform will be embedded directly within Medibank’s digital capabilities.
Brisbane’s Metro North Hospital and Health Service rolled out a new automated outpatient administrative waitlist auditing process using Personify Care’s digital patient pathways across all five sites and for 12 specialties. Part of a three-year agreement with Personify Care, the new process follows a trial at Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital last year, with the new system now reportedly four times faster than previous audit systems.
Medications management technology vendor Bestmed released a new Bestmed Connect module that provides a live medication profile for families of people living in aged care facilities. The tool has been co-designed by researchers and consumers as part of a Medical Research Future Fund project that aims to provide evidence for how user-friendly IT systems can improve medication management and safety in residential aged care.
