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News release

2022 year in review: A year of innovation and growth for Oracle Health in Australia

15 March 2023

Oracle Health (formerly Cerner) remains a global leader in electronic medical records (EMR) and has year-to-date proof points demonstrating the company’s commitment to patients, caregivers, clients, and communities around the world.

 “At the 2021 Cerner Health Conference, we said that improving the EHR was at the top of our list. That has not changed. We’re going to build a system that is intuitive, more open, and more connected,” said David Feinberg, Chairman, Oracle Health.

Australia is a clear example. In 2022, Oracle Health announced several new contracts, collaborations, and client successes that play an integral role in supporting healthcare and helping provide safe, digitised patient care across the country. Teaming with leading healthcare providers and government agencies in the region, Oracle Health is supporting new models of care for Australian population. Here is an end-of-year overview of how Oracle Health made strides to transform healthcare delivery across the region in 2022:

Oracle Health launches Fast Health Interoperability Resources (FHIR) services

Oracle Health launched its much-anticipated Substitutable Medical Applications and Reusable Technology (SMART) and FHIR services, helping to position the Australian healthcare ecosystem with a standard for sharing complex clinical and healthcare data between systems. The last two years has accelerated the demand for interoperability and intensified the desire and need for access to broad and aggregated datasets. Held within the Oracle Health EMR, data can help better manage healthcare including monitoring and managing the spread of infections, coordinate vaccination efforts, and more.

The availability of SMART and FHIR gives third party applications the chance to plug and play with EMR, ultimately resulting in enhanced patient and clinical outcomes. The core infrastructure is now available to all Oracle Health clients in Australia.

Austin Health in Melbourne, a pioneer in Australia known for its work in cancer, infectious diseases, obesity, sleep medicine and more, was first to implement the new FHIR service. With a clear aim to increase internal capabilities to implement new systems swiftly and easily, access to the Cerner Open Developer Experience (code) will simplify Austin Health’s deployment of third-party apps in its environment.

Leidos Australia engages Oracle Health to deliver JP2060 Phase 4

Leidos Australia has been awarded a contract by the Australian Department of Defence to deliver a health knowledge management system to support healthcare services across the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The health knowledge management system will replace the ADF’s legacy electronic health record product with a modern, patient-centric health solution. The new system will record, store, aggregate, and analyse health data and information for the ADF population, unifying multidisciplinary primary and occupational care with emergency and hospital care to enable better clinical decision-making. As prime systems integrator, Leidos Australia will lead a multidisciplinary team of companies, including Oracle Health, experienced in health knowledge management systems and clinical management software. Work has started on the project, Joint Project 2060 Phase 4, with initial operating capability planned for November 2023 and final operating capability in 2025.

Northern Sydney and Central Coast Local Health Districts implement Oracle Health

In 2022, Oracle Health supported the implementation of the Northern Sydney and Central Coast Local Health Districts waitlist optimisation project, a workflow process built upon Oracle Health’s registration and scheduling module that aims to leverage existing solutions to support the electronic management of elective surgery appointments. As part of the New South Wales (NSW) state health plan, the waitlist solution directly aligns with the medical administration’s efforts to prioritise patient priority and surgical waitlist times with data analytics and the health system’s goals to implement integrated care and electronic referrals. The solution leverages existing registration and scheduling solutions to support the electronic management of elective surgery appointments.

Northern Sydney and Central Coast service a population of nearly 970,000 people over a region of approximately 900 square kilometres between Sydney Harbour and Hawkesbury River. Five hospitals – Gosford Hospital, Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital, Royal North Shore Hospital, Ryde Hospital and Wyong Hospital – within the two districts were part of the initial rollout to implement waitlist. This serves as a milestone to further NSW Health’s statewide initiative to roll out a standardised waitlist functionality to three local health districts, saving waitlist managers time each month by eliminating the need to make manual data corrections and streamlining the wait process for surgical patients.

More rollouts are slated to go live at Sydney Children’s Hospital Network and Sydney and South Western Sydney Local Health Districts in 2023.

Queensland Health continues the rollout of Oracle Health’s integrated EMR

Queensland Health announced the relaunch of its digital health strategy, which includes Oracle Health’s iEMR rollout, with an additional $300 million funding boost to support the program delivery allowing the health system to cover more sites and realise benefits earlier. The rollout will include iEMR implementation at five Metro North Hospital and Health Service sites, as well as enhancement and optimisation activities in sites that have existing iEMR capabilities.

Digital health community reunites at Asia Pacific (APAC) Regional User Group Conference

More than 250 attendees convened in Brisbane for the first in-person APAC Regional User Group Conference in two years, excited about the reconnection of the digital health community. Hosted by Oracle Health, the three-day conference included keynotes focused on resilience and wellbeing, as well as featuring workshops on FHIR, Cerner Lights On Network, and Cerner Advance.

Senior medical officers and nurse practitioners from Mackay Hospital and Health Service presented on their use of speech recognition software within the Oracle Health EMR. The presentation described the impact of introducing clinical speech recognition into the Oracle Health EMR and its benefits around clinical documentation. It showcased the benefits of real-time documentation, including better quality notes, decreased time spent in the record, as well as improved patient flow, patient care, and patient safety. Measurable results taken from Cerner Lights On Network showed a 30% reduction in time spent on documentation and two-minute time savings per patient in its emergency department, giving clinicians back more time to spend with patients and junior doctors.

It's been a productive and rewarding year for both Oracle Health in APAC and our client community, and we’re looking forward to further innovation and growth in 2023.