Chief Digital Health Officer, Dr Jason Brown
Work is underway for Metro North’s ieMR rollout with the first order of business– the implementation of Enterprise Scheduling Management (ESM) across Metro North Health. ESM is a module of ieMR that will replace HBCIS in managing patient appointments, referrals, requests, and other related functions.
Digital Metro North (DMN) has been running a series of workshops this week with facilities, vendors, and other staff about how we will roll out ESM across Metro North.
At this point, ESM will go live at our first satellite hospital in Caboolture in July 2023 with rolling implementations scheduled through until November 2023. The outcome will result in all of our Metro North ambulatory services using ESM as a common scheduling platform by the end of next year. We will keep you updated with further detail on how the ESM rollout will be sequenced once timeframes are locked in.
Planning is also in underway for the uplift of all hospitals to the full advanced version of the ieMR medical record once ESM is introduced. The schedule for this work is currently in progress and we will be able to share more detail once finalised. Implementing the digital record is major focus for our Health Service in the next five years and a significant step forward in our digital transformation journey.
Thank-you and farewell to Chris Crooks
Today we bid farewell to Chris Crooks, who has been with Metro North as our Acting Chief Information Officer for the past two years.
Chris played a key role in driving the business case for change to create Digital Metro North (DMN), and has lead the Operations, Portfolio, and Strategic Governance teams within DMN. I would like to thank Chris for his service and commitment to Metro North Health, and wish him the best for the future.
A recruitment process to appoint our new Chief Information Officer will commence shortly.
Cyber Security Awareness Month
October is also Cyber Security Awareness Month. The theme this year is ‘Have you been hacked?’ – very timely, given the recent publicity surrounding the Optus data breach.
Events like the Optus data breach serve as an important reminder of the significant impact cyber-attacks can have on organisations, and the things we should all do as individuals to stay cyber safe.
Just a few things we can do to maintain a good standard of cyber security at work include:
- locking your workstation when you step away from it
- not sticking written login credentials to devices
- using strong passphrases to secure your accounts
- enabling multi-factor authentication for login on your devices
- staying alert to phishing and other suspicious emails.
Further information on Cyber Security Awareness Month and good cyber habits is available here from the Australian Cyber Security Centre, and here from eHealth Queensland.
Regards,
Dr Jason Brown
Chief Digital Health Officer