CeBIT 2011: Queensland Health develops new infrastructure strategy

Queensland Health is focusing on delivering a new infrastructure strategy that provides a more flexible and concerted technical environment for health service delivery, according to its CIO, Ray Brown.

This follows the successful implementation of e-Health within the state.

Brown made his comments during a case study of the Queensland e-Health journey at CeBit 2011 in Sydney.

The aim of the study was to show how the organisation is keeping abreast of safe and seamless patient journey.

With Senator Conroy announcing budgets of $2.1 million for the Princess Alexandria hospital in Queensland for telehealth and $3.5 million for in-home telehealth services for people with diabetes in Townsville, Brown stressed the importance of effective telehealth technologies.

The Queensland e-Health strategy is funded to cover the operational costs of Queensland health. It was developed in 2005 and finalised in 2006.

Currently, the organisation has started to deploy state-wide enterprise speciality applications around particular key areas in the clinical space – such as a videoconferencing network, the Queensland radiology information system and electronic discharge summary system.

It is aiming to install a browser-based application, the eMR viewer, by late 2011, and integrated eMR solutions by 2012, along with a range of other applications.

Brown said managing stakeholder expectations and a range of foundations was vital for the successful implementation of telehealth technologies. They include: speciality applications, procurement, delivery capacity, infrastructure, political leadership, appropriate health policies, and central agency involvement.

“In order for e-Health to be successful the foundations have to be addressed well. It’s also about ensuring that it is sustainable over time and doesn’t fall over,” Brown said.

He mentioned three key benefits of the system, amongst others:

1. An electronic record of over 700,000 mental health clinical notes
2. Over 500,000 electronic discharge summaries from 131 facilities
3. An average of 50,000 hours of clinical telehealth sessions per annum

Brown named new technologies, the procurement of eMR and the NBN as some challenges in going forth with e-Health.

“The challenges for us in terms of how we build that relationship going forward and how we work with those organisations is on Queensland Health’s agenda,” Brown said.