NACCHO Affiliates are being informed of this initiative, so they can choose to take up the opportunity to work with the Department and the dedicated workforce to offer Assisted Registration to their member health service patients.

The Department of Health and Aging is currently conducting an initiative to register people to the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) using a dedicated Assisted Registration workforce (Aspen Medical) supplied through McKinsey and Company (National Change and Adoption Partners).

They will concentrate on conducting Assisted Registration activities, until 30 June 2013, in a variety of healthcare settings across the country.

To ensure that this initiative meets the needs of our Sector, Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service in Canberra has piloted with Aspen Medical a very successful campaign which has to date registered over 260 Winnunga clients and staff for an eHealth record.

As such, NACCHO Affiliates are being informed of this initiative, so they can choose to take up the opportunity to work with the Department and the dedicated workforce to offer Assisted Registration to their member health service patients.

This will be of significance to health services with larger centralised populations with access to a waiting room area, aged care facility or groups of patients where Aspen staff are able to inform and register patients individually.
The Assisted Registration process offers patients a quick, personalised and well-informed way of applying to register for a national eHealth record.

Previous to this process, consumers seeking to apply to participate in the PCEHR, would either do so on the internet, by post, by phone call or at a Medicare office.

The Assisted Registration process allows patients of a health service to fill in a one page application form, and have their identity verified either using a 100 point documentary ID check, or by being a known customer of the health care service. Patients have the opportunity to ask the trained Aspen staff members about the PCEHR and what it would mean for them.

The experience at Winnunga is that patients are quick to see the benefits of having an eHealth record, and are keen to opt in to the system.

The dedicated Aspen workforce tailor their approach to each setting. All  staff deployed will have undergone cultural competency training, and will work with the Affiliates and the service to understand the local context and needs of their patients. The staff would be happy to sign a client confidentiality agreement. Male and female staff members can be deployed if requested. In fact, where there are vacancies, Aspen are open to employing people recommended by the health service to be Assisted Registration staff.

Using Aspen Medical authorised staff members to assist your patients to register does not alter your connectivity with your patients. PCEHR compliant practice software will flag who has an eHealth record (provided the patient has chosen to allow access to clinicians in your service).

Please note that Aspen Medical is not in a position legally to provide a list of patients who have registered through them to a service, however they are more than willing to provide you with data on registration numbers.

Greg Henschke (Acting NACCHO eHealth Project Manager) will be contacting NACCHO Affiliates, with the aim of identifying services that would be interested in participating in this PCEHR consumer registration program.

This resource is currently available until 30th June 2013 and deployment will be managed nationally through DoHA.

It is important to note that the dedicated workforce are not unlimited and we will need to move quickly to identify where we could best use them for our sector.

As more consumers and healthcare practitioners become registered and use the eHealth record system, benefits of the system will be realised through efficiency in healthcare services and increased access to health information.

To this end, I would strongly encourage you to consider working with the Department and the dedicated workforce to offer Assisted Registration to our sector.

For more information on the PCEHR and Assisted Registration,

contact Greg Henschke (Acting NACCHO eHealth Project Manager,

greg.henschke@amsant.org.au

08 89446651 / 0400448159)

or go to the website http://www.ehealth.gov.au .