HealthLink For: Specialists

As Australian GP Practices apply for eHealth Practice Incentive Payments (PIP) they will need compliant Secure Messaging software in place.  Healthlink is an eligible supplier of Secure Messaging Capability as listed on the NEHTA website.

The deadline for PIP applications for the first quarter incentive payments is rapidly approaching.  Requirement 2 of the PIP guidelines state that by 1st February 2013 the practice must;

1) Apply for a digital certificate for Secure Messaging (NASH PKI)
2) Have a standard compliant product (HealthLink HMS 6.6.3) or written commitment from a PIP eHealth Product Register for Secure Messaging that their listed product will be available to the practice in accordance with the timeline in the Commissioning Requirements for Secure Message Delivery
3) Have a written policy to encourage messaging use

HealthLink is Australia’s largest Secure Messaging Network and is a  standards compliant product providing your practice with the capability to both send and receive messages with other Health Care providers. With HealthLink’s HMS 6.6.3 already installed in Australian GP practices, GP sites will meet the requirements set out in the  eHealth PIP Incentive Guidelines.

Additionally by 1st August 2013 GP sites must meet the Commissioning Requirements for Secure Messaging.  HealthLink has been contacting sites to help complete PIP prerequisites (HPI-O, NASH certificates, CSP Link), test your secure messaging and provide you with compliance verification.

HealthLink will be able to provide you with a record of secure messaging to measure and assess your progress against the policy objective of increasing the use of sending and receiving secure electronic messages.

HealthLink continues to work with organisations and vendors across Australia in implementing compliant secure message exchange.  We have project managers, technical analysts and deployment teams ensuring these implementations work smoothly and effectively to improve clinical safety and patient outcomes.

To register your interest in Secure Messaging and receive your Secure Messaging Certification contact our Australian Help Desk on 1800 125 036 or email ehealth@healthlink.net.

Thanks to everyone who sent in their ideas for blog articles for 2013, as part of our “Win a Gourmet Lunch” competition this week.   A $100 restaurant voucher is winding its way to each of the following winners as I write:

• Judy Leishman, Practice Manager at Manly Medical Centre, would like to read more articles about updates in technology, comparisons between different systems, legislative requirements re health information and anything that would make her life easier in administration.
• Jane Ireland from HealthShare suggests we write more in 2013 on primary and secondary integration, regional initiatives and innovative learning.
• Dave Mitchell from Pegasus Health wants to read more about privacy with regards to shared care.
• Rex Browne from Anne St Medical says it would be interesting for prospective cloud immigrants to know what cloud platforms support which HealthLink accessed services.

Happy Christmas!

It’s now only 8 more sleeps until the big day and if you’re anything like me, after a busy and productive year, you’ll be wondering where 2012 went!

The HealthLink team and I would like to wish you and your family a wonderful Christmas day and holiday season and a 2013 full of good health, success and happiness.  And of course, a big “thank you” for your continued support and custom over the year.

Win Lunch On Us!

As a special thank you to you our readers for supporting our blog this year, we’re giving away three gourmet lunch vouchers worth $80 each, redeemable at a wide selection of top restaurants.  To go in the draw, simply email us at: blog@healthlink.net with your name, postal address and phone number and tell us what type of information and articles you would like to see on our blog in 2013.  Be quick though – to be eligible, your email must be received by 5pm Wednesday 19 December 2012! Winners will be notified directly by phone or email by 5pm Friday 21st December.

PS.  We will be open on every working day throughout the holiday period providing you with customer support.

New Zealand has been given Number 1 ranking in the level of cross-sector health information exchange by The Commonwealth Fund in its 2012 survey of eleven countries.  Previous Commonwealth Fund studies have given New Zealand high rankings in various surveys but this is the first one that has focused directly on the level of Health Information Exchange (HIE).

It is interesting to note that countries such as the US, Canada and even Australia are still well behind New Zealand in terms of HIE.  Twenty years of concerted effort has placed us narrowly ahead of Sweden, The Netherlands and Switzerland.  You can access the charts from The Commonwealth Fund’s 2012 survey here.

What this survey did not reveal is the extent of information exchange taking place.  Not only can New Zealand’s practices exchange information with a few other parties (as now happens in most other countries), they can exchange information with almost anyone they choose.  Currently the average New Zealand general practice exchanges information with over 70 other parties in any given month (see graph below).

Most of this communication uses the messaging systems that HealthLink has now had in place for many years but increasingly practices are beginning to use online referrals, eLab and similar online services which have now been installed in approximately 50% of New Zealand’s general practices over the past two years.

If you would like to know more about what HealthLink is doing with its new range of online services or about ways in which electronic messaging can be utilised to streamline healthcare delivery, please feel free to contact me.

We are now fast approaching the annual HINZ conference which is a major event on the New Zealand health informatics calendar.  This year we have a number of outstanding international speakers including:

• Bill Pascal, Chief Information Officer of The Canadian Medical Association
• Dr Claudia Pagliari, a world expert in Health Informatics governance from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland
• Pirkko Kouri, Principal Lecturer in Health Care Technology, Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Finland
• Emma Hossack, CEO of Extensia Pty Ltd, Brisbane

We also have a tremendous line up of Australian speakers, locally produced papers and for the third year, the highly successful Clinicians’ Challenge.  The theme of this year’s conference is Health Informatics into Clinical Practice.

You can take a look at what is happening at the Health Informatics NZ website.

Attending HINZ is important.  It is the one event that everyone in the industry attends.  HINZ is the place to catch up with developments across the industry and to catch up with colleagues and even competitors.  Please get onto the HINZ website and take a look at what is on offer this year.  I look forward to seeing you there.

The New Zealand health sector has one of the highest levels of clinical messaging in the world – by my estimation we are second behind Denmark.  Clinical messaging has a wide range of uses, predominantly it is used for the exchange of pathology and radiology reports, specialist letters, discharge summaries and to send information to and from a range of databases.

Growth in Electronic Clinical Messaging in the New Zealand and Australian Health Sectors

As you can see from the graph above, clinical messaging is growing steadily each year in both New Zealand and Australia.  Approximately 70 million messages are sent annually between more than 9,000 healthcare organisations, spread across both countries.  Key to this growth is the realisation by clinicians that electronic communication is a simple, reliable, low cost way to replace paper with a far more efficient communications medium.

The Average General Practice Exchanges Information Electronically with More than 50 Other Healthcare Organisations Each Month

Today the average New Zealand general practice exchanges information electronically with more than 50 other healthcare provider organisations every month.  This means that the amount of paper being sent from one practice to another has reduced markedly.  The growth in electronic communications combined with better and better electronic medical records is having a very beneficial effect on the New Zealand health system, which is acknowledged as being one of the world’s most efficient.

If you would like to know more about what HealthLink is doing with its new range of online services or about ways in which electronic messaging can be utilised to streamline healthcare delivery, please don’t hesitate to contact me. 

In today’s electronically connected world, we press a button on a keyboard and we expect an email to arrive at its destination.  Did you know that that’s not always the case?  How many times have you been told that your recipient never received that email?  Did they overlook it?  Did it get swallowed by the SPAM filter, the local filter, the company filter, or the ISP filter?  Or was it ‘lost in the post’?  When do you, the sender, first know that it’s not arrived?  The most common email systems recognise there are issues here and have the ability to request a ‘read receipt’.  But not only is it optional to request a read recipient, it’s optional to respond to it.

In the clinical world, there is already plenty of historical evidence of paper communication going astray, but in the electronic clinical world help is at hand.  There is a recognised standard to ensure that you, the sender, know that the clinical information you send is correctly received and imported by the recipient system.  The HL7 application “acknowledgement” message is specified in the International and Australian HL7 standards to acknowledge that your message has been successfully imported into the recipient clinical system and waiting to be read and actioned appropriately.

The problem?

Not every computer EMR system in the health sector has implemented HL7 along with its application acknowledgements.  To encourage EMR vendors to continue improving the quality of electronic messaging and to ensure their systems are interoperable, HealthLink has decided to investigate this small area of HL7 compliance and to publish our findings.  It is imperative that every electronic message is received by the intended recipient in exactly the manner and format intended.

HealthLink has started contacting the seventy+ EMR vendors whose customers have dealings with Healthlink, inviting them to confirm their capabilities.  We plan to collate and publish this information in the October issue of Pulse+IT magazine to better inform the wider health community.

One of the unique aspects about New Zealand’s health IT industry is the way that Clinicians and IT companies work together to collaborate and innovate.  The Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ) Clinician’s Challenge is a very good example of this collaboration and innovation in action.  If you have an idea or a service that you think would be beneficial to the sector, how about giving it a go?

Specifically, HINZ would like to know about a problem you face in your day to day practice that the innovative use of technology could help solve. The winning problem will lead to a technology solution that promotes integrated health care and leads to better outcomes for patients.  The problem should be important and recurring.  It may be a process that needs improving or a better way to store, find or share information.

You can submit your case online at the Clinician’s Challenge link.  Entries close Friday 17 August 2012.

A recent article on the Computerworld website has caused quite a stir. Randal Jackson interviewed me to find out more about my open letter to the health sector which was addressed to Dr Murray Horn and Mr Graeme Osborne and copied to the Minister for Health, the Hon Tony Ryall. Click here to read the article.

I wrote the letter in response to the controversial decision over the eReferrals tender for the Nelson-Marlborough DHB, in which the contract was awarded to the worst scoring and most expensive vendor. In the article I propose that instead of funding and running specific projects, the MOH use the same funding to apply incentives to stimulate innovation amongst competing providers. Such an approach is working around the world. I also advocate interoperability standards rather than proprietary solutions. How much use will it be if the Nelson and Wellington eReferral systems cannot communicate with each other? Currently they won’t.

Continue reading »

Photo by Simon Clark/FarmerClark.com

It certainly seems a long time since I was a young Telecom exec,  setting up HealthLink as a specialised Telecom service!  We are now doing rather a lot of healthcare sector integration, delivering over 65 million items of clinical information per year, across New Zealand, Australia and now Canada.  With our recent expansion into Canada and growing demand in Australasia, the future looks bright.  But our key focus is still on service quality rather than service expansion.

You can read more about HealthLink’s origin and history in this week’s NZ Herald article, as well as learn about our three newest services, CareConnect eReferrals, CareInsight and eLab.