Digital Health News – May 2024

The Bacchus Marsh and Melton (BMM) Digital Health Transition Project is gathering momentum. As our Chief Executive Officer, Russell Harrison, announced, we have a revised project timeline and plan to go-live in November 2024. The exact go-live date will be announced closer to that time, as we prepare for operational readiness.   

The Digital Health team appreciates the dedicated support from the teams at Bacchus Marsh and Melton as we advance BMM’s digital health journey together. 

Our focus is on preparing BMM managers and staff for the upcoming milestones. We will hold information sessions both face-to-face and virtually throughout May and June 2024. You can find session details on the Digital Health site.  

We are also recruiting the Digital Health Super User team who will play a crucial role in providing support leading up to, during and after the go-live period at BMM. The Digital Health Change team will work closely with BMM Managers during June to ensure that we recruit Super Users from all disciplines across BMM sites. 

If you are interested in becoming a Digital Health Super User, please speak to your manager first and sign up here.  If you have further queries, feel free to reach out to the EMR Change Team at [email protected]  

For more information on the BMM Digital Health Transition Project, visit the Digital Health site.

The Digital Health team is prioritising the optimisation of EMR functionality for Specialist Clinics at Western Health. In May 2024, several initiatives were completed: 

• The Digital Health Medical Informatics team provided ‘at the elbow’ support for 20 specialist clinics, across Footscray and Sunshine hospitals. 
• A new EMR phone line is being trialled for medical officers during May and June 2024, with support from the Digital Health Medical Informatics Officers who understand the EMR in outpatients’ settings. 
• A pilot to improve printing efficiency continues at Footscray Hospital Level 2 and Sunshine Hospital Pod 1, aimed at saving time for clinicians.  
• Bulk printing of patient labels, either single or full sheet, is now available for clinicians.  
• A new outpatient outcome and orders report ensures patients have follow-up appointments and helps capture all outcomes for a clinic dates.  
• New functionality allows for the cancellation of checked-out appointments.  
• Ongoing improvements to VINAH are addressing system defects, reducing errors, and ensuring accurate activity data is available. 

For a summary of all EMR updates made in May 2024, visit the new EMR Updates page. 

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Discovery project team is nearing completion of data capture for the core set of services for both Inpatient and Community Mental Health.  

In parallel, the team is reviewing Western Health’s current EMR workflows. This review will assess how effectively these workflows can be adapted to support mental health services. By taking this step, we aim to ensure a seamless integration of Mental Health into the existing EMR, creating a unified system for efficient and coordinated care.

Over the coming months Western Health will transition to HealthLink as its secure messaging delivery provider for clinical documentation. An operations-led working group has now been established to further support a successful transition.

The Digital Health team is collaborating with other teams across Western Health on this high-priority initiative, supporting our commitment to deliver accurate, timely and seamless communication that supports patient care and safety.     

Western Health already uses HealthLink for radiology reports and has expanded our agreement to encompass new services for transmitting clinical documentation to GP practices.  

The project will integrate various Western Health clinical documents and associated workflows into HealthLink using a phased approach that will be reviewed by the Operations working group and confirmed next month.   

In the meantime, the focus is on testing and encouraging GP clinics to sign-up to HealthLink, if they have not done so already.  As part of this phase, we will be working with a sample group of GP practices to test our workflows to HealthLink and ensure operational readiness.  

We look forward to providing further updates as this important initiative progresses.  

In collaboration with other teams across Western Health, the Digital Health team is actively supporting the New Footscray Hospital project. 

The Digital Health team is working to integrate Digital Health applications into the New Footscray Hospital. The EMR build, which commenced in mid-April 2024 is ongoing.  

The project team has also begun assessing technology, interfaces and other digital health applications. 

The Digital Health trainers have been busy during May 2024, demonstrating EMR tips and tricks to a record number of graduates, including 127 nurses and 16 allied health clinicians! 

Our talented trainers have also teamed up with the Medical Simulation Team, conducting weekly sessions to turn Western Health’s interns into EMR experts. Key focus areas have included creating and sharing auto-text, and creating favourite orders, among others. We look forward to the interns spreading their knowledge across the organisation with each rotation. 

With the new EMR inpatient referrals for Hospital in The Home (HITH) now up and running, Digital Health trainers have supported 18 nurses and clinicians from the Footscray and Sunshine HITH teams in transitioning to the new process. The availability of a new HITH WeLearn module complements the face-to-face training provided to the team.  

If your team would benefit from attending a face-to-face or virtual session to enhance their EMR knowledge and boost productivity, please drop us a line at [email protected].