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Health Informatics Society |
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Orion Health Congratulates Peninsula Health on Health
Informatics Society of Australia 2007 Don Walker Award for
Effectiveness in Healthcare Delivery
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Orion Health
December 18, 2007
Australian EPrescribing program recognized for improving
patient safety, health and reducing hospital stays.
Santa Monica, CA -- Orion Health, a leading provider of clinical
workflow and integration technology for the healthcare sector,
today congratulates Peninsula Health on being awarded the 2007
Don Walker Award for Effectiveness in Healthcare Delivery by the
Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA). |
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Peninsula Health (PH), an outer Melbourne metropolitan health
service, received the award based on an innovative project to
improve continuity of patient care using e-Discharge and
e-Prescribing. The award acknowledged that the e-Discharge and
e-Prescribing initiatives have demonstrated a quantifiable
impact on the improvement of patient outcomes through the use of
innovative IT solutions.
"Australia is one of the many countries emphasizing the use of
technology to reduce medical errors and streamline
communications between physicians for more coordinated care and
fewer ambulatory admissions," said Ian McRae, Orion Health Chief
Executive Officer.
"Peninsula Health's team has implemented innovative
e-prescribing and e-health solutions to improve patient care.
We're proud to have such solutions be based on Orion Health
technology."
Like many Australian healthcare organizations, information
sharing at Peninsula Health had historically been paper-based
and ineffective. A survey conducted by PH and the Mornington
Peninsula Division of GPs in 2000 revealed only 16% of the GP
respondents had received a patient discharge summary within
three days of the patient's discharge. Many respondents had
received discharge summaries up to three months post-discharge.
Of the discharge summaries that had been received only 27% were
legible.
The aims of the project were to improve the quality of discharge
prescribing and reduce the opportunities for medication errors
through the use of e-Prescribing. PH also hoped to improve the
continuum of care between acute and primary care by providing a
legible and accurate medication list via the use of e-Discharge
Summaries. The final goal of the program was to enhance the
quality, legibility and timeliness of discharge information
communicated to primary care practitioners to reduce unnecessary
hospital readmissions.
Electronic Prescribing and Discharge in Australia
Efforts to improve the continuity of the patient care journey
from acute care settings to primary care have increasingly
emphasized the role of information technology. The need to avoid
medical errors, and prevent unnecessary hospital readmissions
through enhanced communications with General Practitioners (GPs)
has been well documented. The Australian Council for Safety and
Quality in Health Care has recommended the use of e-Prescribing
coupled with the accurate transfer of information between
hospital and community settings to reduce medication incidents.
These recommendations are supported by other national health
authorities. More than half of preventable medication incidents
are associated with prescribing errors. A number of Australian
controlled studies have indicated the provision of medication
summaries to patients and their GPs improves patient outcomes
and reduces medication incident.
Poor communication between hospitals and GPs has been identified
as an obstacle to effective integrated health care. A number of
authors have also highlighted the serious limitations of our
current system of handwritten discharge summaries, while others
have suggested discharge summaries of inadequate quality may
have serious impacts on subsequent patient care. The Australian
Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care studies suggest
"Communication from hospitals to GPs are in an unacceptable
state, and to continue with the current system of discharge
summaries appears futile". Citing high error rates (36.4%) and
low rates of discharge receipt (27.1%) these researchers suggest
resources currently being invested in this inefficient system
would be better spent in determining methods of improving
communication.
The Don Walker Award
The award was presented by the Health Informatics Society of
Australia, in the spirit of Australia's first informatics
pioneer, Don Walker, the first Doctor in Australia to introduce
a computer into his practice. The award acknowledged that the
e-Discharge and e-Prescribing initiatives have demonstrated a
quantifiable impact on the improvement of patient outcomes
through the use of innovative IT solutions.
About Peninsula Health
Peninsula Health is the major health care provider serving the
metropolitan and rural areas on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula.
With close to 800 beds we provide a wide range of services from
obstetrics to aged care, rehabilitation, emergency and intensive
care, oncology, psychiatric services and Hospital in the Home
(HITH). http://www.peninsulahealth.org.au
About the Healthcare Informatics Society of Australia
HISA was established in 1992 by representatives of health
informatics groups operating within Australia at that time. The
first HIC national event was held in Brisbane in August 1993. In
1994 HISA confirmed its status as an incorporated body following
the first Annual General Meeting of national members at the Gold
Coast meeting of HIC'94. In the following formative years HISA
and informatics groups continued to work toward a national
governing body and constitution.
In year 2000 HISA became a national governing health informatics
body. Its constitution and accountability registered with the
Australian Securities Commission organisation (ASIC) see
http://www.asic.gov.au/
About Orion Health
Orion Health's easy-to-use solutions and applications improve
patient care and clinical decision making by providing
integrated health data in a single, unified view. By enhancing
existing healthcare information systems, Orion Health's Rhapsody
Integration Engine, Concerto Medical Application Portal, and
workflow solutions provide healthcare workers with easy access
to patient data and trends, and reduce errors and omissions by
streamlining information transfer.
Worldwide, Orion Health is implementing health information
communities involving over 35 million patients with tens of
thousands of active users including Maine's
HealthInfoNet and the Vermont Health
Information Exchange. Orion Health's partners include leading
health system integrators and IT vendors such as Accenture, IBM,
Oracle Corporation, Sierra Systems and others. Orion Health has
more than 1,000 clients around the world, including
Lahey Clinic, New York State Department of
Health, UCLA Medical Center, and U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC). More information can be found at
www.orionhealth.com. |
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