Auckland's E-Referrals Project Enters Testing Phase

Computerworld has reported that the regional e-referrals project in Auckland, New Zealand, has entered into its testing phase and the country is one step closer to realizing this health IT project nationwide.

Ngaire Buchanan, Auckland's project spokesperson, told Computerworld that two participating electronic medical records (EMR) vendors have delivered releases of their EMR products with the major functionality in place to support the HISO 10014.2 standard.

"The two EMR systems are now being tested by our sub-contractor, HealthLink, and formal testing of the EMRs on our own systems is due to commence,"Buchanan said.

The e-referrals system enables GPs to refer their patients to any of the 28 district health boards' services by creating electronic referrals in their own electronic medical records systems.

"Our key objective was to establish a viable e-referrals system," HealthLink CEO Tom Bowden told Computerworld. "In order to do this we had to test a number of assumptions about the readiness of online technology and to use the project as a starting point for developing a series of communications and security-related standards."

Once a full suite of e-referral templates was available, GPs were quick to adopt the solution. Bowden said the quick uptake was clear recognition that e-referrals improved workflow. "GPs also see a benefit in the improved care they believe patients will receive because of the amount and quality of information that can now be sent to the hospital as part of an electronic referral."

"New Zealand has 450,000 hospital referrals a year. We expect that by the end of this year, half of the referrals in Auckland will be e-referrals," Bowden says.

Source: ComputerWorld