WA injects $133 million for EMR, IT infrastructure and more orders from the state

$133 million investment for ‘critical’ healthcare IT in WA

The Western Australian government recently announced a A$3.2 billion ($2.1 billion) investment in healthcare in its 2024-2025 budget.

It includes A$200 million ($133 million) for EMR and critical ICT infrastructure. A further $28 million ($19 million) will be used to continue supporting the WA Virtual Emergency Department.

This year’s “record budget” is expected to “increase hospital capacity, support healthcare workers and improve patients’ access to care,” according to a government press release.

Added prescriber approval management to SafeScript NSW

eHealth NSW recently added new functionality to SafeScript NSW that simplifies the approval process for prescribing controlled medicines.

The approval management system, released in November, simplifies prescribers’ application for approval to prescribe and dispense certain Schedule 8 medicines. It reduces their time with paperwork and allows them to manage and track their approvals in real time.

Two years after being rolled out statewide, SafeScript is now used by more than 29,000 healthcare providers to access patients’ prescribing and dispensing history for controlled medications.

NSW Health’s RIS-PACS is now operating as usual

After four years, NSW Health’s medical imaging system, Radiology Information Systems and Picture Archiving & Communications System (RIS-PACS), is now business-as-usual in hospitals across the state.

The RIS-PACS program was completed early this year after helping migrate historical images across 86 hospitals to one statewide platform since 2020.

“The program reflects one of the most significant digital changes in NSW Health to date, resulting in the standardization of radiology practices across Australia’s largest public health system,” eHealth NSW said in a statement.