ABOUT 200,000 patient records at Mildura Base Public Hospital will be digitised as the Victorian Government aims to modernise the region's health system.
Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas visited Mildura yesterday to announce the rollout of electronic medical records (EMRs) In Mlldura, Echuca and Swan Hill.
The $14 million process will occur over four years and aims to reduce paperwork and ensure clinics can deliver care more efficiently.
EMRs streamline tasks, reduce manual writing of reports and prescriptions, and give healthcare workers easy and fast access to vital patient information.
Ms Thomas said the system complemented legislation passed earlier in the year, which made it easier for care providers to access and share electronic patient information.
“We live in an environment where people traverse our state for a whole range of reasons, so it is really important that clinicians have access to the most recent information containing their patients as soon as possible," she said.
"It Is going to be more efficient and save time and create space within the health service."
Ms Thomas emphasised that it would also ensure improved safety for patients through privacy protocols that ensured data was held confidentially at all times and could only be accessed when needed.
The legislation that we have implemented ensures that there is a record of anyone who has ever accessed that information, there are audits of the access to the information:' she said.
"Patients can be and should feel very assured that their data Is kept very safely”.
Ms Thomas said the EMR system meant there would be less duplication of services and much better access to information about current medications.
"This Is really critical to people who present in an emergency situation;' she said.
"You can access that information much more quickly, bedside in fact, as opposed to having to wait for a paper file to come out:'
The TrakCare medical record system is being extended by Loddon Mallee Health Network to MBPH, Echuca Regional Health and Swan Hill District Health.
