The Sunrise EMR clinical suite—hosted on Microsoft Azure in West Gippsland

Healthcare delivery is no longer defined by location—providers need to have the capability to reach patients where they are to truly deliver the care they require, especially in geographies like Gippsland where related health services can be spread across vast distances. Cloud-hosted solutions, mobility and telehealth functionality are not only the future of healthcare, they are the present.

Altera Digital Health won the competitive tender to deliver an electronic medical record (EMR) solution to the entire Gippsland Health Alliance in late 2017. Altera Digital Health’s focus on innovation and its cloud partnership with Microsoft is enabling Australian healthcare providers, such as the Gippsland Health Alliance and its subsidiaries including West Gippsland Healthcare Group, to benefit from.

“A connected community of health is key to enabling us to provide a continuity of care for our patients. The journey for our patients doesn’t always start and finish in the hospital, they have pre- and post-care and most always include visits with a GP. Engagement with key stakeholders, contemporaneous documentation and care is vital.”

Trish O’Kelly
WGHG Director Clinical Operations

Healthcare disruption—the process of going from paper to digital

Australian healthcare providers, in both the state and public sectors, are increasingly focused on improving the overall value of an EMR with increased availability, performance and security whilst also increasing clinician satisfaction and advancing innovation and digital solutions for consumers.

The process of going from paper to digital is never an easy one in any healthcare setting. Whilst some staff take it in stride, eagerly embracing the digital revolution, others can find it all quite daunting. Very few, however, are oblivious to the significant benefits digital health brings to healthcare settings, and most importantly, to patients. For this reason, the process of switching from paper to electronic medical records was inevitable for WGHG as a patient-centric organisation focused on delivering the best healthcare solutions to the communities it serves.

“Some of our staff [members] were extremely excited about the switch whilst the less tech savvy were probably a bit more apprehensive, but our approach was to jump in with both feet knowing how well the roll out has gone in other areas across Gippsland. I think this gave them the confidence to embrace it,” said WGHG Director Clinical Operation Trish O‘Kelly.

Realising tangible benefit

The primary benefits WGHG has realised through its Sunrise on Azure platform include:

Scalability

• WGHG operates across a wide geographic area of Gippsland incorporating a broad range of healthcare delivery sites. With Microsoft Azure, WGHG can extend the reach of its EMR to incorporate other health sites within its jurisdiction, a process significantly expedited by the power of cloud hosting.

Cost efficiencies

• As well as fast-tracking extensions to other health sites through the convenience of the cloud, WGHG is also realising the cost benefits of the Sunrise on Azure platform as it eliminates the significant outlay associated with the purchase,
  installation and maintenance of hardware associated with infrastructure-based systems.
• Similarly, when hardware associated with the system is upgraded, this can be accommodated within the cloud-based EMR at no additional cost.

Disaster recovery and data sovereignty

• WGHG benefits from firewalls built into Azure that offer advanced risk resilience due to the EMR being hosted on a secure network, enabling preventative threat detection to reduce downtime and prevent extensive damage. Data sovereignty is also achieved with backup and disaster recovery sites being situated in Australia, enhancing business continuity benefits.
• WGHG’s EMR has a built-in service that constantly monitors system performance. When issues are detected, for example, if CPU utilisation exceeds the threshold, an alert is generated, and action can be taken by the Altera Digital Health/Azure support team.
• System downtime is also reduced to a minimum so that if the primary system is offline, for whatever reason, a backup system can go live in a matter of hours. Leveraging the value of Sunrise solutions with the partnership of Microsoft, GHA
  has transformed from using an EMR to optimising its efficiencies with a true platform of health that enables usability, connectivity to devices/IoT and other advanced technology.

“Since its implementation, we have noticed time saved in nursing medication administration, a reduction in costs to print medication orders and summaries, reduced medication costs and reduced pre-printed stationery and paper costs. All documentation is clearer as it is not handwritten and it details clear time stamps of when notes were accessed. Multiple staff now have the ability to access patient notes at the same time and from anywhere within the organisation. Overall, we are seeing an improved nursing efficiency here at West Gippsland Healthcare Group,” said O‘Kelly.

The training process

The process of transitioning from paper to electronic medical records naturally requires a comprehensive training process. Thankfully, Sunrise, hosted on Microsoft Azure, consistently ranks highly in leading studies into the usability of electronic medical record systems. In 2022, a report by SOLVE Research shared insights from in-depth conversations and surveys with clinicians about EMR usability and ranked Sunrise as the world’s leading EMR for “ease of use”.

According to O’Kelly, “The staff training process was challenging as we had to balance clinical need with educational need but were able to do so successfully with the support of Altera Digital Health, which has experience in this regard. Staff [members] were able to attend a face-to-face session and then complete an online module prior to the implementation. Ongoing training is a must to get the most out of the technology.”