Industry collaborates to end the era of the fax machine
The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Health Council has approved Australia's National Digital Health Strategy - Safe, Seamless, and Secure. A key priority in the strategy is to end dependence on the fax machine and paper-based correspondence, by helping healthcare providers communicate with other professionals and their patients via secure digital channels.On 6 June 2018, key industry participants agreed to adopt the tools, processes, and standards that have been demonstrated to solve the interoperability problems across secure messaging and clinical information systems.
Through this collaboration, Australia is on track to end the use of fax machines in healthcare, with key industry players agreeing to the next steps to improve secure messaging of patient records between healthcare providers using clinical software.
Telstra Health is leading a consortium to test the delivery of discharge summaries from Royal Melbourne Hospital to a range of GPs. CorePlus, Genie Solutions, Global Health, HealthLink, and Zedmed are also participating in this project.
Healthlink is leading a second consortium and is testing the delivery of referrals from a range of GPs to specialists. MedicalDirector, Best Practice Software, Genie Solutions, Global Health, and Telstra Health are supporting this work.
The projects have been extended to include allied health practitioners and electronic medical record (EMR) products used in that domain. Read the release.
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