> IMHO, we are no further ahead with clinical > communications in 2007, than we were in 2000
In Oz, there has been progress ... Firstly, 1999 was the watershed year when many general practices started changing from hard copy to electronic health records. And in 2000, pathology and radiology companies were happily providing electronic downloading of results. Since 2000, more general practices have adopted EHRs, and there has been increasing pressure on hospitals and specialists to communicate electronically so that hard copy communication would not need to be scanned into general practice medical records. Accordingly, for 2 years my local public hospital, Frankston Hospital, has sent electronic discharge summaries using secure HealthLink technologies. These discharge summaries are placed in a holding file of the EHR, where they are checked by the GP and then automagically incorporated into the EHR. Then, in the 2nd half of 2006, our GP Division decided to take advantage of freely available Argus, and promoted this to GPs and specialists. Since then, 208 GPs and specialists have installed Argus (nearly half the GPs and specialists), and encrypted specialist letters/reports are now starting to trickle through. >From where I practice, NeHTA are nowhere on the radar. John Mac _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
