Doctors in Australian capital choose Intrahealth

NEWS RELEASE

Doctors in the Australian capital choose New Zealand’s Intrahealth software to power their clinical systems

Auckland, New Zealand. 22 August 2003.

The ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Division of General Practice has entered into a strategic alliance with New Zealand’s medical software developer Intrahealth to supply clinical and patient management software for general practitioners in Canberra and surrounding areas.

Similar to Independent Practitioner Associations (IPA) in New Zealand, Divisions of General Practice were established in 1992 to support general practitioners as they look after the primary health care needs of all Australians. Activities relating to information technology were described as a core role for Divisions in a report released last month by the Commonwealth Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Kay Patterson.

The agreement with Intrahealth strengthens the information management and information technology support role provided by the ACT Division of General Practice to its members. It will also allow the Division to be proactive in dealing with information technology rather than continue reacting to problems as they arise.

Dr Glynn Kelly, President, ACT Division of General Practice, has been an ardent advocate of clinical computing for many years. “We chose Intrahealth for several reasons” says Dr Kelly “They share the view that Divisions are here to support GPs and have been proactive in working with us. Profile, their product, is a solid medical software package. We can do some minor programming within it and tailor it for local use. That’s terrific!”

Intrahealth has been providing software to Australian general practitioners since 2002 and Profile is highly regarded as an integrated clinical and practice management system. In New Zealand, over 3000 clinicians use the company’s software and installations include the Navy Hospital in Devonport, Auckland.

“Our strategy has always been around provider networks such as Divisions” says Dr Mark Matthews, Chief Executive Officer of Intrahealth. “Divisions are good at supporting GPs because they are close to them and know best what their needs are. So we decided to provide some tools within the software program that will allow them to adapt it to meet their customer needs.”

The Division taking the role of providing primary support to users of Profile reduces the costs to Intrahealth. “We pass this saving on to the Division who in turn pass it on to their members” says Dr Matthews, “Reducing the cost burden of good clinical software greatly facilitates its adoption in general practice”.

Dr Kelly agrees “This is a significant benefit to the members of the ACT Division of General Practice who now have access to good software at significant savings.”

Adoption of information technology in general practice is key to achieving the goal to develop a system-wide framework to support health information exchange between all sectors of the health system, a joint action area for 2003-2004 under the memorandum of understanding between the ACT Division of General Practice and ACT Health.

More information on Intrahealth and the ACT Division of General Practice can be found on their respective websites www.intrahealth.com and www.actdgp.asn.au

ENDS

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