Communicare, Australia’s leading, fully integrated patient information solution for primary and community health services, has been upgraded to version 22.1.

Communicare provides a single, easy-to-navigate source of patient information and is Australia’s leading health software for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander healthcare organisations that deal with complex care needs in Indigenous and remote communities. The digital health solution is an integrated and collaborative approach to community and primary healthcare.

Through the most recent enhancement of ePrescribing to the 22.1 version release of Communicare, users can replace the old method of signed physical paper prescription as a legal prescription with the token model of electronic prescribing. These improvements enable an even better user experience for the 8000+ healthcare professionals that currently use the software.

Adding ePrescribing capability can also better support rural and remote patients of healthcare organisations, particularly in the case where clinicians are providing care using telehealth or virtual care models.

Other key improvements included in the Communicare version 22.1 release include:

• Better diversity support with the introduction of gender and pronoun biographic fields
• Improved governance over bulk SMS sending with permissions linked to a system right that enables allocation of this feature to specific users
• Expanded privileges within the Communicare Administration role to better manage immunisation data and the integration with the Australian Immunisation Register
• Improved presentation of scheduled reports.

Colleen Birchley, Telstra Health’s General Manager of Primary and Community Health said,

“Our Communicare solution gives healthcare professionals a holistic, patient-centric view across the entire patient journey and serves as a single source of truth to help improve reporting and decision-making.”

“The improvements incorporated with the 22.1 version release reinforce Communicare’s commitment to ensure the software meets the needs of users now and into the future.”

Communicare also integrates with several other digital health solutions and services managed by Telstra Health, including virtual care technology and the National Cancer Screening Register, supporting improved access to care in rural and remote communities.

Telstra Health’s delivery of ePrescribing under National Conformance Profile 2.3 sets Communicare up to deliver the updated 3.0 Conformance early next year.