ABOUT US
Pen Computer Systems Pty Ltd (PCS) was established in 1993 as a health informatics company with a focus on the Primary Health Care sector. The company’s directors carried forward the knowledge and experience of Foundation Medical Systems Pty Ltd, an organisation that led the introduction of dispensary computers in Australian community and hospital pharmacies.
About Us
The company takes its name from its early investment in pen-based computers to support patient information capture at the point of care delivery. The Royal District Nursing Service of Victoria collaborated with PCS to evolve the Gemino pen-based computer system for 700 nurses who deliver domiciliary nursing care across Greater Melbourne.
Since the formation of the company PCS has had an investment in the design, development and deployment of primary health systems to support chronic disease management and prevention systems within a population health context . It has been responsible for entry to the market of systems known as Patient Information and Recall Systems. These systems have been part of health information management for Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHO) administered by OATSIH for nearly 15 years. The PCS product in this sector (Ferret) is now in use by more than 35 ACCHOs, by state health services and by divisions of general practice.
With the growing recognition that computerized health systems would need to be able to talk to each other to support team-based care in primary health and the exchange of information with hospital systems PCS made an extensive investments in eHealth standards expertise. For more than a decade PCS has assisted the professional development of eHealth standards through HL7 Australia, HL7 International, the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA), Standards Australia, the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) and has been proactive in engagements with the National eHealth Transition Authority (NEHTA) through its committees and collaborations.
Flowing from its eHealth standards heritage PCS began the development of systems for Electronic Clinical Decision Support in General Practice. These “middleware systems” provided a link between web-based clinical resources and the GP clinical desktop patient records. The sentinel project that announced the arrival of “in-consult” Decision support was the DoHA Integrated Care Program (ICP) begun in 1999 and concluded in 2005. The implementation stages of this closely evaluated project was awarded to PCS.
PCS has been continuously engaged in the development of applications, assessments and tools to support general practice during the consultation process. These applications included the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) eRedbook, the DoHA eLifescripts initiative and the newly introduced PrimaryCareSidebar™ infrastructure which are effective tools in the management and prevention of chronic disease in Australia.
In 2007 PCS responded to the increased need within general practice for chronic disease reporting systems. PCS evolved concepts from its OATSIH PIRS heritage to create the PCS Clinical Audit Tool™ (CAT). By the end of 2009 CAT had been deployed to GPs through more than 70 Divisions of General Practice. The system won the prestigious Don Walker Award for Efficiency, at the Health Informatics Society of Australia HIC 2009 conference.
PCS has a history of leadership and innovation in primary health care, and is fully Australian owned. We are a Microsoft Certified Partner.
The company’s employees are based out of Sydney (Head Office) and its Melbourne project office. Staff roles include Health Informaticians, Project Managers, System Architects, Software Engineers, Quality Assurance, Technical and Application support, and Sales and Administration. These roles are strongly underpinned by clinical experience.
Our expertise is aligned with our clients experience meaning PCS delivers eHealth solutions that really make a difference.
