Integrated Home Monitoring / Shared EHR Live

 

Smart Health is delivering another first to the Australian health industry, as part of a Victorian Government-funded BEIP-2 project to improve access to care for people with cystic fibrosis living in regional areas. Using a combination of technologies including telehealth, remote monitoring devices and a shared electronic health record (EHR), for the first time, clinical data from home monitoring devices (heart rate, blood pressure, lung function, oxygen saturation, blood glucose) is securely flowing directly into the Smart Health private cloud-based shared EHR.   A mobile patient portal will also go live shortly as part of the project.

 

Clinical consultations can now be conducted between metropolitan specialists and patients based in their own homes, using near real-time clinical data viewed directly from the online EHR simultaneously by both the consultant and the patient.  This capability is applicable to many chronic disease patients, reducing the need, cost and the patient anxiety that accompanies hospital visits, while improving access to care and supporting clinical decision making. Patients are empowered to manage their health with full access to their health records, which are presented in the EHR to enable ready comprehension of information.

 

The shared EHR already contains a rich set of clinical data, including diagnostic results (lung function, pathology and radiology results), hospital pharmacy dispensing records and patient administration notifications. This comprehensive data set is now enhanced by near real-time clinical data from state-of-the art home-monitoring devices.

 

The project is led by Professor John Wilson, head of the Adult Cystic Fibrosis Service at Alfred Health, Professor in Monash University’s Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences and head of the Monash Alliance, a consortium of clinicians from major medical schools, hospitals and eHealth solution providers that are affiliated with Monash University.

 

The solution providers to this project include Tunstall Healthcare (home monitoring equipment), Attend Anywhere (telehealth), Riskman (clinical risk management) and Smart Health (shared EHR); all are delivering innovation to Australian healthcare for the Monash Alliance and for the Australian health sector.

 

January 20th, 2014