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28 October 2022: UK health technology company Kinata has partnered with local electronic referral provider MEDrefer, to integrate their systems to reduce referrals to hospital specialists and allow better patient care in the community.

“Based upon our experience in the UK indicates that critical pressures on Australia’s healthcare can be alleviated if we remove some of the inefficiencies that are a legacy of the 20th century,” Kinesis Commercial and Operations Director Ben Harrison said of the company’s entry into the Australian market.

Kinata’s “pre-referral” platform, Kinesis, has saved the NHS more than £14 million ($25 million) by allowing patients to be triaged by specialists prior to referral. GPs are also provided with specialist advice on treatments to ensure patients arrive in secondary care at the right time.

“Two-thirds of patients attending outpatient clinics can be treated in primary care if GPs have better access to specialist support. Patients can also avoid long waits for outpatient clinic appointments while hospitals are able to focus on more urgent cases. A considerable amount of unnecessary spend can be avoided by patients getting the right care at the right time.”

The combined platform can support telehealth for rural and remote areas, mitigating the need for patients to travel significant distances for appointments.

“Our joint mission will change the way healthcare is delivered in Australia by integrating GP and specialist care in a way that hasn’t been achieved until now,” MEDrefer CEO Brian Sullivan said.

“Our integrated systems will manage the whole pre-referral and referral process and journey, all in one space, making it easy for clinicians to collaborate and increase the amount of quality care provided within the community.”

MEDrefer’s platform allows GPs to issue electronic referrals automatically populated with atomic data to a referral template directly from a patients electronic medical record. The system also allows GPs to search for specialists based on location, availability, special interests and language, and refer or treat according to the patient’s condition and circumstances.

Media contact: briansullivan@medrefer.com.au

MEDrefer Pty. Ltd. proudly announces the release of MEDrefer Enterprise, a central hub of clinical and management activity for Australian health communities.

The MEDrefer platform is an affordable solution that captures live, atomic, de-identified data from eReferrals and other eForms to a secure cloud platform. It provides on-demand access of local clinical and management activity, enabling fast responses to population health and clinical service analytics to DoHA and leading PHNs.

Our unique FHIR-enabled platform represents the only single solution that allows faster responses to the particular challenges faced by PHNs in managing the health and wellness of their communities. Once established, the system operates seamlessly without the need for regular interaction with local primary care clinics.

MEDrefer is an established and highly developed eReferral platform featuring Australia’s leading online directory of Specialists, Allied Health and Hospitals, allowing referring clinicians to search and find the most appropriate speciality service, refer via electronic auto-populated forms and thereafter keep track of the status of every referral they issue.

To maximise compatibility with common Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in use by GPs and Specialists (Best Practice, Medical Director, Zedmed, Genie and cloud based EMR’s), we provide MEDrefer Manager©, a small-footprint desktop application, downloaded and configured once only featuring an auto-update capability. MEDrefer Manager provides a one-click launchpad to key workflows and powers universal templates that can be accessed via a web browser from websites such as HealthPathways.

Our national Healthcare Services Directory combines native self-managed listings with those synchronised from Secure Messaging Networks like Medical Objects and the National Health Services Directory (NHSD) and Provider Connect Australia (PCA) via their integration. Our delivery model is unique, with multi-sourced listings de-duplicated and linked to a single master record as an authoritative point of truth.

Once Specialists, Allied Health or Hospitals are synced from their various source directories, listings can be enhanced to include their special interests, location, availability and languages to quickly request advice and guidance, share images with remote diagnostics, or simply request further information. Furthermore, each directory listing can link to one or more custom referral eForms published by the recipient service to list their minimum data requirements for patient intake, removing the need to consult a separate template directory

Our Advice and Guidance solution licensed from the UK, allows patients to be assessed and managed by hospital specialist/s consulting with the local GPs to evaluating a patient’s status, determining if they could be treated locally with secondary assistance. If possible, apart from saving time and travel for the patient, it also assists the local GP to gain experience they would not normally receive. Overseas experience shows a 62% reduction in hospital attendances, and we expect this service is even more appropriate in Australian communities.

The MEDrefer platform not only improves the quality of care to patients, but importantly, provides valuable data insights into opportunities to improve the delivery of primary care for PHNs, Local Hospital Districts and the Government.

Whether users are GPs, Specialists, Allied Health, Hospitals, Patients, PHNs, or Government there will be a benefit for all, and we welcome the opportunity to work with partners who share our vision.

Brian Sullivan, MEDrefer Founder and MD.