NT sinks $186m into ‘largest ever’ clinical systems replacement
Outdated hospital IT to get the boot.
The NT government has committed $186 million to the replacement of four of its critical clinical systems with a single, integrated patient information database that will be accessible in real-time from any one of the territory’s hospitals or medical centres.
The core clinical systems renewal program will take five years to complete and represents a comprehensive overhaul of the health system’s operational IT environment.
It will deliver the NT’s doctors and clinicians a single view of a patient, integrating data that is currently stored in four different systems - CareSys, the clinical workstation system, the primary care information system, and the community care information system.
Changes to a record made anywhere in the state will be updated and appear in the system in real-time.
The NT’s Minister for Corporate and Information Services described the CCSRP as the largest IT reform ever undertaken in the territory.
“It will improve efficiency, eliminate outdated, manual systems of patient support and ultimately improve health outcomes,” he said.
The establishment of a single, integrated source of truth on a patient’s medical history is expected to be particularly transformative for the NT’s 50 medical centres, many of which serve regional and remote communities.
Health Minister John Elfrenik said the program ”will transform our public healthcare network meaning clinicians will no longer need to re-assess a patient’s history each time they visit a territory public health service".
“Immediate access to patient records will improve the delivery of health care for territorians through reduced re-admissions, reduced emergency department waiting times and improved patient safety.”
The clinician-centred database will also potentially deliver better, more integrated system that could, by choice, be uploaded into a patient’s own personally controlled health record in the national My Health Record system.
The NT has long been a leader in the e-health space, with its NT-based consumer electronic health record system considered an early blueprint for My Health Record.