Health Applications

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  Overview
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  Mental Health
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  Dental Health
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  HealthConnect Victoria

Dental Health Services Victoria - Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Project

Update

Status: Implementation completed

Dental Health Services Victoria (DHSV) successfully completed its state-wide rollout of Titanium in June 2008. All public dental clinics across the state are now accessing Titanium via the Dental Health Services Victoria (DHSV) data centre (housed at the Whole of Government data centre) and either via HealthNET or one of the Victorian Alliance of Rural Health (VARH) networks.

• 69 Community Dental Practice (CDP) agency sites state-wide now access Titanium
• 51 School Dental Service (SDS) sites enabled and trained to access Titanium (including 24 rural and 27 metropolitan locations)
• CDP and SDS sites are all using Titanium chair-side.

Overview

In line with the HealthSMART technical architecture, the Titanium system provides a central approach to ICT infrastructure across DHSV to maximise benefits from the investments made and minimise costs of delivering this service. It also provides the foundation to enable electronic health records for dental health consumers in the future and positions Titanium to participate in future connectivity initiatives, eliminating duplicate entry and registration.

Outcomes:

• Provides access to the Titanium application for patient administration and ‘chair-side’ where access was not available;
• Implemented a centrally managed ICT environment that provides a uniform application environment across both the CDP and the SDS;
• Promotes the use of Titanium to achieve the electronic patient record;
• Improves the efficiency of information collection for reporting and data analysis;
• Implemented formal service management policies and processes for the central ICT infrastructure;
• Changed the ‘local practice’ ICT to an integrated ICT architecture able to leverage sector initiatives requiring such connectivity.

Activities not in scope were:

• upgrading existing Titanium workstations at CDP agencies
• providing an electronic interface to the HealthSMART patient and client management systems
• implementing digital radiography or an electronic interface to existing digital radiography systems.

Note: DHSV recognises the importance of interfacing to the HealthSMART patient and client management systems solution and the growing number of dental clinics with digital radiography systems. Any future initiatives in these areas will require detailed planning and separate funding.

Relationship with HealthSMART

This project was funded as part of HealthSMART and formed part of the Health Applications portfolio within the Office of Health Information Systems. The project adopted the principles of the HealthSMART program and reported through to the Board of Health Information Systems.