The most popular story this year was the announcement that former Sydney LHD CEO Teresa Anderson was appointed head of the newly announced NSW Single Digital Patient Record (SDPR) implementation authority, set to oversee the roll-out of the $1 billion Epic EMR to the whole of NSW.

Telstra Health is always in the news and has regularly featured in our top 20 for over a decade. This year, it sold its eReferral and secure messaging business Argus to HealthLink, picked up the remaining 50 per share in the Fred IT business – which has developed Australia’s real-time prescription monitoring systems and the national prescription exchange service, amongst many other achievements – and signalled a focus on the cloud and FHIR for its Smart marketplace for apps and add-ons.

There were two brilliant opinion pieces on AI that took a hard look at actual use rather than the PR stuff: one by South Metropolitan Health Service’s senior innovation project officer Francesco De Toni on an ultimately unsuccessful trial of a desktop-based real-time dictation system for clinical documentation. The other was by Sallyanne Wissmann, the CEO of the Health Information Management Association of Australia, who took issue with the idea that AI could easily solve problems with clinical coding of medical records.

There was also the announcement of Australia’s big new Health Information Exchange in August and how it will work, and also the new national digital health strategy, which was launched in February. This was accompanied by the Department of Health and Aged Care’s digital health blueprint and action plan.

Our favourite story of the year was from a presentation at HIC in August by Royal Melbourne Hospital physiotherapist Julie Louie on the hospital’s patient portal, which uses Epic’s MyChart Care Companion app and platform. Her colleague Kath Feely also gave a super presentation on the portal at the Digital Health Festival in May.

Other big stories were about EMRs and CRMs: in the latter case, how Salesforce is being used in the hospital and the aged care setting. MEDITECH had a big win for its cloud-based Expanse EMR, which will be implemented at 10 St Vincent’s Private hospitals over the coming year; NT Health struggled a bit with the huge Acacia EHR it is rolling out across the territory, using InterSystems’ technology; and Oracle Health is promising a brand new EMR built from the ground up that it says will not be a refurbished Cerner EHR.

Rounding the top 20 off was general practice management system market leader Best Practice getting ahead of the competition by integrating an AI scribe from Lyrebird into its system, Microsoft on how to use Teams for clinical care, and as always, a story on a call for the My Health Record to be fixed. There has been countless of those every year since its launch in 2012.

Pulse+IT’s Hot Top 20

1. Sydney LHD CEO to lead billion-dollar SDPR implementation authority

2. HealthLink swoops on Telstra Health’s secure messaging and eReferrals business

3. Opinion: How can digital scribes improve healthcare? Hard-learnt lessons

4. Australia’s national health information exchange: how will it work?

5. Telstra Health to acquire remaining 50 per cent stake in Fred IT

6. ADHA outlines plans for a national health information exchange

7. System interoperability and data exchange key to new national digital health strategy

8. Inside DoHAC’s digital health blueprint and action plan

9. Telstra Health bundles marketplace product suite under new Smart brand

10. Delivering care virtually via a patient portal: the RMH experience

11. St Vincent’s to roll out MEDITECH Expanse for single EMR across 10 private hospitals

12. Oracle Health promises brand new platform, not a “refurbished Cerner EHR”

13. Metro South signs strategic partnership with Salesforce for digital transformation program

14. RACGP calls for overhaul of My Health Record, reduction in admin workload

15. Best Practice to integrate Lyrebird Health’s AI transcription tool

16. HIC 2024: Microsoft Teams as an essential clinical screen and gateway to AI tools

17. Calvary to deploy Salesforce for home care and residential services

18. NT Health may revert to legacy system at Darwin EDs following Acacia issues

19. eHealth NSW completes “landing zone” for Single Digital Patient Record

20. Opinion: Think AI and clinical coding is easy? Not so fast