Tas govt to integrate e-health systems
Tasmania's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has released a request for tender for the implementation and support of a system to pull together data from various legacy systems into one electronic health record.
The contract will be for five years, and will commence this year in July and last until the end of June 2015.
"The Department of Health and Human Services invites tenders to engage a strategic partner who has the capacity to deliver and implement a longitudinal Electronic Health Record foundation, with sector-wide health information exchange and clinical and business intelligence capability," DHHS said in its tender.
Tasmania's hospitals and health professionals have been running multiple systems for different requirements, such as iSoft's iPatient Manager and Homer for patient administration, as well as iSoft's EDIS system for the emergency departments.
"[New] systems being sought are not to replace the range of clinical systems, rather integrate the information within existing systems, and present information for clinicians and managers to interrogate and interpret easily," the tender said.
The idea was to have a single view of Tasmanian patients. Integration, ease of navigation and user interface were key for the tender. The finished product will serve as a foundation for the three areas of health services, statewide and mental health services, Tasmanian Ambulance Service and other business units within DHHS.
Submissions close on Wednesday, 17 March at 2:00pm.
The integration move followed the Tasmanian Government looking for suppliers for new systems as part of its e-health strategy. Tasmania has been heavily involved in e-health over the past years. Its 2008/09 budget marked out $18.5 million to be spent over four years on new IT systems in hospitals, child protection and mental health.
Tasmania's e-health push is in line with national efforts to introduce an individual health identifier for all Australians and individual system implementations by the states such as plans for an e-health system.