The Australian digital healthcare agency (ADHA) is willing to pay big money for a secure messaging service so they can end the use of fax machines. Better communication is wanted for healthcare providers and the agency is offering $30,000 to each successfully pitched service. Is there a fax machine replacement out there? Click on the link to find out more.
Almost every healthcare organization has went to some form of paperless in the last ten years. From check-ins, to medical charts, to billing, trying to cut down on the use of paper is not only more efficient but saves a ton of money on cost. The ADHA is just trying to add to this by eliminating paper-based messaging in healthcare as well as a replacement for secure messaging through providers.
There are parts of the Australian healthcare sector that have adopted messaging services that are more advanced than the fax machine but they have generally been confined to those operating under the same service. The ADHA is now working with two different industries, Telstra Health and Healthlink, to deliver a concept that offers enhanced functionality that resolves the issues faced. The goal is to promote and accelerate the widespread adoption of the enhanced functionality within clinical information systems and secure messaging systems.
The ADHA wants to focus on two different types of software packages. The first is an Applicable Clinical Information System (ACIS) which includes practice management systems or electronic medical record systems that send and receive messages over secure messaging infrastructure to other clinical information systems for the purpose of providing clinical care to patients.
The second from of software is the Applicable Secure Messaging Systems (ASMS) which covers secure messaging systems that allow for the exchange of messages between clinical information systems, will maintain a provider directory and deliver messages, and expose provider directory services to other secure messaging systems. The participating organization would be required to release an enhanced version of their software containing the specified technical capabilities by May, 2020.
The goal is to ensure that every healthcare provider has the ability to communicate with other professionals and their patients via secure digital channels. Striving to end the dependence on paper-based correspondence and the fax machine or post, by 2022. The CEO of ADHA said, “if the world is full of faxes, it will not be full of precision medicines – let’s get the digital basics right.”