Digital Patient Care – eHealth

SDPR aligns to the Future Health roadmap, by delivering a digital service that is sustainable and involves patients in their care, while supporting clinicians to deliver better health outcomes.

Single Digital Patient Record

The Digital Restart Fund has committed funds to the Single Digital Patient Record (SDPR). The SDPR is a transformational program that will provide an integrated view of a patient’s care within the NSW Health system. It will give clinicians easy and timely access to a holistic record of an individual’s medical information.

It will achieve this by integrating current Electronic Medical Records (eMR), Patient Administration Systems (PAS) and Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS), and building upon the existing capabilities of each. This will enhance the coordination and continuity of care for patients, no matter where they seek treatment in NSW.

Simplified Appointments

The Simplified Appointments for patients and clinicians initiative was granted DRF seed funding to develop a statewide digital referral management solution to improve the referral experience for patients, clinicians and referrers in outpatient services. During 2021-22 the minimum viable product (MVP) prototype solution was developed for the eReferral Hub and Electronic Referral Management System (ERMS). Required integration was implemented and electronic patient and referrer notifications via SMS and email were introduced.

As the lead site, Sydney Local Health District (SLHD) began the pilot in April 2022, providing early confirmation of the efficacy of the solution and expected benefits. This initiative supports more timely access to outpatient services, improves referral and outpatient service management, and improves communication with consumers by providing SMS and email messaging about the referral outcome.

The ICT Assurance Framework (IAF) Gate 2 compliant business case was developed to support the long term, statewide implementation approach, now known as Digital Access to Care, to enable the program to rollout across NSW.