Read this article in Pulse+IT.
Macquarie University Hospital (“MUH”) is the first TrakCare site in Australia to implement an integration to EpiSoft’s hospital bookings system and doctor portal, ‘eReferrals’. After initially launching EpiSoft’s patient ‘eAdmissions’ portal in 2020 to digitise their patient pre admission process, including informed financial consent, the hospital undertook an additional, significant change management program to convert their referring practices to using eReferrals.
MUH’s admitting doctors and their practice staff self register on a secure web portal and collaborate on a list of electronic hospital bookings in real time, including the upload of signed consent to procedure documents. Referrers are notified of a decline or cancellation of a hospital booking via an integrated status traffic light system which was especially helpful in the context of frequent admission cancellations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Following 4 months of scaleup that achieved 80% of requests for admission being made on eReferrals, MUH set its sights on integration of the complete EpiSoft admissions platform to its TrakCare patient administration system and electronic medical record. This required a custom search and response workflow using HL7 ADT messages to identify and match the TrakCare patient and episode before the data and documents from EpiSoft are imported across. If a patient’s admission date changes, the pre admission and consents documents in EpiSoft are instantly synchronised with this new data and pushed back into TrakCare. This automation has significantly reduced the administrative burden on Macquarie University Hospital staff.
“The integration of the EpiSoft portal with our TrakCare system has transformed the administrative workflows in both our Patient Services Administration and Hospital Bookings Teams. Documents are uploaded into TrakCare and are available to clinicians on the day of processing” said Steve Salmon, Patient Services Project Manager.
Looking ahead, EpiSoft now plans to build upon this milestone TrakCare integration to help other hospitals realise efficiencies in their hospital booking and patient pre admission process. “We were so pleased to be part of Macquarie University Hospital’s rapid and successful rollout of eReferrals which is a big compliment to their bookings & administration team.” said EpiSoft’s CEO, Jenny O’Neill.
“TrakCare is EpiSoft’s sixth hospital patient administration system integration which has provided a platform for other customers seeking to realise the same pre admission process efficiency improvements and digitisation that Macquarie University Hospital has achieved.”
EpiSoft’s eReferrals was first launched over 5 years ago with Healthscope Hospitals as part of the broader ‘epi-me’ admissions platform in use by over 85 hospitals in Australia. In addition to acute hospital bookings, eReferrals also includes a comprehensive mental health and rehab pre admission process. The company has a 100% customer retention rate for epi-me. As well as being integrated to several of the most popular Patient Administration Systems, epi-me has integrated to numerous EMRs including EpiSoft’s own. EpiSoft’s EMR features custom workflows for oncology, infusion management, hepatitis, IBD, addiction disorders and mental health.
