A recurring theme from GP surveys has been to reduce the increasing volumes of paper correspondence coming into General Practice. Specialist to GP communication is high volume so the Barwon Medicare Local set out to look for a modern solution to address this need. An e-health needs assessment was conducted on Specialists’ requirements for electronically communicating with GPs in the Geelong region. Whilst the response was positive, the Division was conscious that we were looking at more than just a messaging system, we were looking at a change management approach that would maximise the uptake of e-communication.  Read more....

Our selection process for a messaging system was based on the following requirements:

• seamless integration with GP software
• web services capability
• NEHTA (National e-Health Transition Authority) compliance
• flexibility to develop specific, not “out of the box” requirements
• minimal costs to end users

After comparing the available messaging systems, Global Health’s ReferralNet stood out as the leader in meeting our long term requirements.

The Division realised that to get Referral-Net up to meet our requirements that there would have to be development. Rather than wait for a government grant, the Board agreed to fund the development. Testing began over a four month period. We would only deploy the system until we knew it was ready to go. The implementation has been divided into three phases. First, the Division supported practices with PKI certificates and loading the referral-net client. The uptake was 95% of local GPs (282). Next we commenced the process of getting 40 Specialists onto Referral-Net. This would be followed with joint planning with Barwon Health to establish an E-Referral working party consisting of Executive staff and senior clinicians. Whilst we are still progressing with each of the phases, our early implementation experience demonstrated the value of having Division working in the Specialist rooms and helping with change management.

For many years, the Geelong region had tried and failed when it came to local primary care providers attempting to implement e-referral systems. The greatest gap was always not having strong enough GP engagement. However, in 2009, the G21 Regional Alliance Health and Wellbeing Pillar provided state government primary care partnership funds to the Division to help GPs connect with Specialists. As a consequence, we will be in a better position in 2010 to engage state funded primary care service providers to utilise Referral-Net. A major component of the Divisions’ efforts has been testing specialist and GP software compliance for sending and receiving HL7 messages that is seamless to the end user.

The Division is now undertaking an implementation planning study to engage the private allied health sector. This e-health initiative is not a project, it is a permanent program and one that we hope will inform other regions who can take our learnings and achieve the outcomes we are aspiring for.