Latrobe Regional Health is a vital healthcare provider servicing a large regional population. In alignment with its long-term vision to improve clinical capacity and elevate patient care, LRH embarked on a $223.5 million Stage 3A redevelopment—one of the largest infrastructure investments in its history.

Delivered at the end of 2023, this multi-year expansion added new surgical inpatient units, an expanded operating theatre suite, a 16-bed ICU, a new maternity unit and diagnostic imaging services.

Recognising that infrastructure improvements needed to be matched by digital transformation, LRH launched the Sunrise Surgical Care and Provation iPro Expansion Project. This initiative modernised perioperative workflows and supported the hospital’s mission to deliver safer, more efficient patient-centred care.

“This deployment showcases our strong partnership with Altera. Leveraging this technology enhances patient experiences and ensures seamless care delivery across our facility. The ability to maintain a single clinical record from pre-admission to discharge is a game-changer for both staff and patients.”

Jon Millar
Chief Operating Officer, Latrobe Regional Health

Overcoming challenges

The expansion brought significant clinical demands, prompting LRH to address several challenges, including:

• Limited visibility across surgical workflows and theatre utilisation
• Manual tracking of emergency surgery referrals
• Fragmented communication between departments
• Paper-based anaesthesia documentation
• Increased reliance on staff for real-time patient updates

To meet these demands, LRH needed an integrated digital solution that could streamline workflows, improve scheduling and enhance coordination across the surgical journey.

The solution

In collaboration with Altera Digital Health, LRH became the first Australian hospital to deploy Sunrise Surgical Care and Provation iPro—a tightly integrated anaesthesia information management system (AIMS) platform with Sunrise EHR hosted on Microsoft Azure.

Sunrise Surgical Care – Fully integrated with LRH’s enterprise-wide EHR, Sunrise Surgical Care supports real-time theatre scheduling, tracking and resource allocation. The system enhances operational efficiency while maintaining a continuous clinical record from perioperative care through discharge.

Provation iPro – Designed by practising anaesthetists, Provation iPro AIMS streamlines electronic anaesthesia documentation throughout the entire perioperative encounter across 12 operating theatres and 18 PACU beds. Features include:

• Autovitals: Real-time streaming of vitals from anaesthesia machines into the clinical record
• Pre-filled procedure templates and hard stops for documentation compliance
• Picture documentation and full visibility across care teams
• Seamless data transfer from pre-admission assessments to day-of-surgery records

Together, Sunrise Surgical Care and Provation iPro have digitised and unified LRH’s surgical and anaesthetic workflows, removing duplication and improving clinician collaboration.

Key innovations

• 24/7 Theatre Schedule: Differentiates elective, emergency and non-surgical procedures.
• Emergency Surgery Referral Board: Tracks patients awaiting surgical procedures, including non-admitted community-based and Emergency Department (ED) patients, as well as admitted patients from Latrobe Regional Health (LRH) and other health services.
• Real-Time Data Access: Integration with Sunrise provides immediate access to patient demographics, allergies, medications and procedural details.
• Patient Procedure Tracker: In a Gippsland first, LRH introduced real-time surgical updates for patients’ families and carers through a Patient Procedure Tracker, which went live in late April 2025. The system enables loved ones to track a patient’s journey through surgery—from waiting, to theatre, recovery and discharge—via unique identifying numbers displayed on dedicated screens throughout the hospital and on the LRH Website.

“This simple system provides reassurance. Families can see where their loved one is in the surgical process without needing to ask staff for updates,” said Janelle McInnes, General Manager Surgical Services at LRH.

Beyond patient experience, the Patient Procedure Tracker also enhances clinical accuracy.

“We perform over 10,000 procedures a year, and each one traditionally involves up to 15 individual paper forms. By removing the paper trail and committing that information to an electronic platform, this ensures records are updated in real time,” Ms. McInnes said.

“Having real-time access to patient and theatre information allows us to plan more effectively throughout the day. We can identify and respond to delays or opportunities as they arise, which has made a big difference in how we manage theatre utilisation.”

Janelle McInnes
General Manager Surgical Services, Latrobe Regional Health

Implementation highlights

The project was guided by strong collaboration between clinical and operational leaders and included:

• A renewed focus on aligning culture with health service values.
• Revision of the medical employment model to support service goals.
• Theatre efficiency programs to reduce downtime and wait times.
• A transition from paper to digital in Pre-Admissions clinics.

Outcomes and impact

• Improved efficiency: Theatres are now scheduled and tracked in real time, helping staff respond dynamically to changes and optimising throughput.
• Stronger collaboration: Digital documentation is accessible to clinicians across departments and locations simultaneously, improving communication and reducing duplication.
• Enhanced patient and family experience: The Patient Procedure Tracker keeps families informed, while streamlined surgical workflows reduce wait times and confusion.
• Reduced administrative burden: Manual data entry has significantly decreased, enabling clinicians to focus more on care delivery.
• Future-ready platform: Built on scalable cloud infrastructure, the solution positions LRH to adapt to future demand and integrate with emerging innovations.

Climbing higher

Latrobe Regional Health’s successful rollout of Sunrise Surgical Care and Provation iPro AIMS has set a new benchmark in surgical digitisation for regional Australia. By unifying clinical workflows, improving transparency and supporting better resource planning, LRH has demonstrated how digital transformation can directly benefit patients, clinicians and the broader healthcare system.