The Australian Government is investing $467 million over two years to develop the critical national infrastructure for eHealth records as a key element of the national health reform agenda.  This will give all Australians from July 2012 the option to sign for Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR).

The national PCEHR system which will be available from the 1st of July 2012 and will provide access to selected health information from your consented patients’ health records that can be securely shared with relevant healthcare organisations within Australia.  Once a healthcare organisation registers for the PCEHR system, appropriate or relevant healthcare professionals within that organisation can be authorised to access the system.

The PCEHR system is not a replacement for your existing medical records or a replacement for taking a note of a patient’s history and reviewing existing clinical notes.  Instead healthcare professionals can choose what they do or don’t upload in consultation with the patient.  Similarly, patients may request that information not be entered if they do not want it shared.  For more information click here.

To progress elements of the PCEHR system, work is currently underway in 12 ehealth sites, one of which is St Vincent’s and Mater Health Sydney Limited (SVMHS).  SVMHS in partnership with Divisions of General Practice is implementing the ehealth initiative in two phases and has named this partnership initiative as Eastern Sydney Connect.

What will Eastern Sydney Connect do?

Eastern Sydney Connect will be implemented in two phases.  Phase 1 will:

• Enable GPs to refer electronically to St. Vincent’s hospital and Clinics
• Enable GPs to receive admission notifications, discharge notifications, discharge summaries, letters from specialist’s from the Clinic.

Phase 2 will:

• Enable GPs, St Vincent’s hospital and other participating health care providers to share health summaries.