Victorian patients will receive better and safer care with the roll out of new technology to enable hospital doctors and general practitioners to share critical medical information about their patients’ care, medication and existing conditions.
As part of a $1.6 million funding boost, the Daniel Andrews government will support an extra eight Victorian health services introduce the latest technology to seamlessly share patient records with GPs after a hospital stay.
Replacing old-fashioned and unreliable faxes that offer poor security, the Electronic Discharge Summaries include details about a patient’s stay in hospital, their diagnosis, tests and procedures performed, prognosis, medications prescribed and recommended follow up.
Discharge summaries are delivered securely and electronically in standardised format to patients’ GPs, preventing errors and ensuring doctors have the most up-to-date information about their patients.
This means better and safer patient outcomes, and continuity of care by making it easier and more reliable to transfer information about a patient between hospital doctors and GPs.
Services receiving funding include Melbourne Health, Monash Health, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, The Alfred, The Royal Women’s Hospital, Western Health, Gippsland Health Alliance and Grampians Rural Health Alliance.
Local health networks and community health services are also being invited to take part in the Victorian eReferral Program. Four sites in Victoria will be chosen to pilot the program, which could then be adopted nationally.
The Victorian eReferral Program will make it easier for GPs to create a patient referral from their desktop, select a destination and instantly deliver it electronically to a nominated healthcare provider.
Victorian Minister for Health Jill Hennessy the government is rolling out modern technology for a modern health system, giving doctors the tools to better communicate vital information about patient care, medications and conditions.
“This will support doctors to provide their patients better care when they return home after hospital,” Ms Hennessy said.
“I would encourage local community health services to participate in the pilot eReferral program so we can try to make life easier for patients and GPs when it comes to organising patient referrals.
