31 May eReferral Connectivity across Victoria’s Peninsula Health
A major connectivity project is well underway with Global Health’s connectivity software being rolled out across Peninsula Health; the major healthcare provider serving the metropolitan and regional areas on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
Peninsula Health is a metropolitan public health service with over 900 beds, delivering healthcare services to a population of over 300,000 across a region of approximately 900 square kilometers.
Apart from improvements in workflow productivity and patient safety, a key driver for the Connectivity project is to meet the Victorian Government’s eReferral and Access Policies for managing referrals. This covers the processing and live tracking of Referrals and the reporting of KPIs relating to inbound referrals.
The initial phase of the Referral Management project has been progressively rolled out since December 2016 with discharge summaries sent electronically from Frankston Hospital’s Cerner Electronic Medical Record system through Global Health’s ReferralNet secure messaging platform, to General Practitioners (GPs) and Specialists in the region.
Over 50% of discharge summaries from Peninsula Health are now sent via the ReferralNet platform, equating to 3,500-4,000 per month.
Over the coming weeks the second phase of implementation of the Referral Management project will see inbound referrals from GPs across the catchment region to the 40 specialist outpatient clinics at Frankston Hospital.
Global Health’s MasterCare+ provider platform has been configured with the Referral Management features necessary for a central intake team to assess, triage and trigger the associated processing for inbound referrals. The dashboard within MasterCare+ is maintained to ensure that the Victorian government KPIs for eReferrals and access are monitored for adherence in real time.
MasterCare+ is Global Health’s “Software as a Service” platform for healthcare providers optimised for mobility.
Nikki Thrift, Global Health’s Connectivity GM, said:
“ReferralNet is core within MasterCare+ so GPs and Community Health centres will be able to send referrals and receive notifications directly from their desktop. This will greatly increase the efficiency, quality and timeliness for all providers that are involved in the care of a patient.”
Lyn Jamieson, Peninsula Health Chief Operating Officer, said:
“The transition to electronic referral screening and triage will improve internal workflows and provide tangible benefits to both consumers and GPs across the region, with referrals being processed faster and more effectively. We also anticipate significant efficiency savings with the removal of paper-based processes in this high volume area of our health service.”
Final User Acceptance Testing is underway with progressive rollout scheduled to commence within four weeks.