The July edition of HealthClix, the HealthConnect SA Newsletter, is now available

HealthClix July 2008 [PDF]

Pen Computer Systems is building the E-Health Care Planning System for the HealthConnect SA project and the work features prominently in HealthClix.

Why have over 50 Divisons of General Practice across Australia purchased PCS Clinical Audit Tool for their GPs?

The PCS Clinical Audit Tool (CAT) is a clinical information system that supports quality improvement in information management and enhances patient outcomes and the business capability of general practice.

CAT is available to Divisions of General Practice for a 14 day FREE TRIAL period.

For more information on CAT visit www.pencs.com.au/cat

PCS, through HealthConnect SA, are developing the South Australian e-Health Care Planning System (EHCPS) which will allow health care providers to develop a web-based care plan for patients with chronic conditions.

As part of the project, PCS is also be providing a suite of e-Health tools to improve the quality of patient data, identify at risk patients, and to assist in the prevention and management of chronic disease.

For more information click on EHCPS Project Summary [PDF]

HealthClix is a HealthConnect SA publication that strongly features the work that Pen Computer Systems is doing for the SA e-Health Care Planning System.

PCS has signed an agreement with SA Department of Health to develop stage one of their e-Health care planning system. The e-Health care planning system will allow general practitioners to develop a web-based care plan for patients with chronic conditions, facilitating better collaboration between the health care team to deliver more coordinated care to people with chronic conditions.

For more information click on the link below:

The Royal Australian College of General Practioners (RACGP) and PCS have signed a landmark collaborative agreement in health informatics. This will see the further evolution of tools for clinical decision support, population health and chronic disease management with a special focus on assisting GPs in the area of clinical data quality improvement.

For more information, click on the link below:

In a practical move to assist GPs with clinical data improvement, practice population management, target risk group case finding, and practice revenue improvement General Practice Victoria and 25 of its Divisions have given Victorian doctors a “leg-up” through the provision of the Pen Computer Systems Clinical Audit Tool for the next 12 months.

“New practice accreditation standards, the need for improvements in the management and measurement of chronic disease management, and the business requirement for this to be achieved within a financial model that can improve general practice incomes are the drivers for this initiative” said Bill Newton, CEO at GPV, who has warmly supported the initiative from the outset.

The Pen Clinical Audit Tool creates progressive snapshots of general practice patient data and presents this in a meaningful way using a graphical approach that is intuitive and requires only a few minutes of time for GPs or other practice staff to master. It allows the user to drill down from graphical data to identify patients of interest in the practice. It points to gaps in data recording, and reports on achievement against key practice targets.

Particular enthusiasm for Clinical Audit has come from National Primary Care Collaboratives Coordinators who see the tool as a reservoir for “hundreds of PDSA opportunities”. Without requiring specialist software skills or specialised reporting the Audit Tool gives authorised NPCC participants the opportunity to roam through practice data and get answers to the important questions that drive behaviour change in general practice for patient and practice benefit.

“It is refreshing for division staff to have the opportunity to provide practices with a system that they can really use to improve quality and improve practice revenues at the same time. We have been able to build on the close relationship we have with our practices by providing them with two systems, that work together to improve the potential of our practices” said Ken Mansbridge, long time Division stalwart and CEO of the NEV Division of General Practice.

 “The Clinical Audit Tool from Pen is an excellent continuous quality improvement tool that can optimise the Practice Health Atlas initiative inspired by the Adelaide Western GP Network” Ken added.

Chris Hayward, IMICT Team leader and Regional Health Information Management Officer in Victoria says that “the engagement of 25 Divisions in Victoria presents an excellent opportunity to provide a barometer of population health status and chronic disease coverage across the state, and our team is very focussed on assisting its deployment in 2008”.

The system is supported by a national Web Forum for Users, a Divisions Reference group,  and a National HelpDesk FreeCall service for Division staff.

Further Information:

Pen Computer Systems Pty Ltd                      

John Johnston BSc DipSci AIMM                       

Managing Director

Pen Computer Systems Pty Ltd

E-Mail:  john.johnston@pencs.com.au

Phone:(02)  9635 8955

General Practice Victoria

Chris Hayward

IMICT Team Leader

E-Mail: c.hayward@gpv.org.au

Phone: (03) 9341 5200

Pen Computer Systems Pty Ltd is delighted to announce that WWW Machealth Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of the Macquarie Health Corporation, has acquired a significant equity share in Pen Computer Systems Pty Ltd. This move allows Pen to further expand its operations in primary health informatics and it re-invigorates a long term relationship between two committed health informatics companies.

Macquarie Health is a well-established provider of health services through its private hospital investments and through WWW Machealth it has an important stake in biotechnology and health informatics. This company is an early leader in the testing of concepts and deployment of personal health records over the Internet.

Pen Computer Systems has been a sustained contributor to the development and use of health informatics standards and has led the development and implementation of multidisciplinary primary health systems in Aboriginal health and in the implementation of electronic clinical decision support systems for general practice. These systems support chronic disease prevention and management programs.

Macquarie Health and Pen have a joint interest in the evolution of an Electronic Health Record for all Australians and its progression towards empowerment of the consumer who has to deal with the growing complexities of the health system.  Both companies are well placed to leverage their joint expertise and respective customer environments to make an enhanced contribution to the use of health informatics for consumer benefit.

Macquarie Health Corporation has a Group turnover of over $40 Million. The synergistic benefits of Macquarie Health and Pen will contribute to the growing industry led initiatives that are required to implement an EHR within a standards framework that is emerging for e-Health in Australia and internationally.

On public display for the first time at the Australian Divisions of General Practice Forum at the Gold Coast Pen’s exciting new system for GP’s and practice staff created remarkable interest for all those that viewed it. This system is a continuous quality improvement tool and a system that offers tangible ways to GP’s and practice staff to increase practice income and efficiency. Read more in the Products Section of this web-site.

Comments included:-

“Here is a tool that can support 1000’s of PDSA’s (Plan Do Study Act) simply” – National Primary Care Collaboratives enthusiast

“You have really nailed whats required for general practice with this tool, John” – Comment from CEO of a leading Division to John Johnston, Managing Director at PCS

Lois Burgess, (University of Wollongong) Chief Investigator for the ePOC Australian Research Council – Industry Linkage project presented an update of progress with this project. This well attended presentation featured the work practice and information management issues facing hospital based nurses delivering care in the community. She canvassed the solution approaches based around the use of PDA’s linked to in-hospital systems to “bridge the digital divide” between the point of consultation and the hospitals corporate information systems.

PCS is an “Industry Partner” sponsoring this Research work which will include a PhD project around the extension of SNOMED-CT with Clinical Archetypes. This work is being done by Amanda Ryan, supervised by Professor Peter Eklund. Project support is assisted by the exceptional project management contribution of Jason Sargent, Research Assistant. The other industry partner is The Ambulatory Care Team (TACT) of the South-East Sydney Illawarra Area Health Service represented by its Medical Director, Dr Damian Ryan. Dr Jean Evans, CIO of South-East Sydney/Illawarra Area Health Service is the Partner Investigator for the project.

The coveted President’s Award for “Best Scientific Paper” sponsored by Pen Computer Systems was won by David Ashton of Meridian Informatics. David’s paper was about use of Clinical Archetypes in a production system for information support to obstetrics management.

“We all know that its very challenging for small Australian Health Informatics companies to be able to make both an industry contribution and a scientific contribution” said John Johnston in his presentation citation “and David has achieved this with his excellent paper”.

John also highlighted the importance and need for implementation projects to move along “hand in hand” with the national deliberations about standards as they progress. Practical implementation of standards was the best way to create confidence in their capability and use.

HIC 2006 was the “best ever” from a PCS perspective this year. We enjoyed quality discussions with many senior health professionals, with leaders of industry, and senior representatives of the government e-Health agenda. The PCS Profile in primary health care informatics was well recognised with our excellent stand and the quality team we had on it. This included Karen Young, Brett Esler, Tarkan Shahho and John Johnston.

The assistance of Dr Trina Gregory (GP work practice expert) and Mr Jason Sargent (Research Assistant – ePOC Project - University of Wollongong) was really appreciated.

There was high interest in PCS Population Health systems, Electronic Clinical Decision Support, and much excitement around our new GP Clinical Audit Tool for GPs.

“There is too much emphasis on getting GP’s to contribute clinical statistics to some external pool when they need tools to review and assist their own data recording work practice first. – GP Clinical Audit will assist that process”

Congratulations HISA on a great event, an essential conference agenda inclusion for anyone who is serious about improving health care quality and coverage.