At Best Practice Software we take pride in offering the best in-market practice management solution and delivering added value with feature-rich functionality, extensive free customer enablement materials and unlimited support.
Typically, we will introduce a small price increase at the beginning of a financial year, in line with inflation and increased operating costs. However, we understand the financial impact that COVID-19 may have had on Practices, and to support our valued Practices, we will not be introducing a price increase for Bp Premier customers this 2020/2021 financial year.
We hope this will assist Practices in these uncertain times, and act as a small token of our gratitude for the work you do at the frontlines of this pandemic. Once again, we extend our thanks to you for your valued business.
Join Product Training, Knowledge & Deployment Leader Suzi Eley and Commercial Partnership Specialist Will Durnford in the first episode of the Best Practice Software Podcast.
In this episode, Suzi and Will cover topics raised during the Electronic Prescribing masterclass, such as queries surrounding implementation and rollout, how the token system works, how to find a participating pharmacy, and associated privacy concerns.
Listen to the podcast in browser below.
Note: Since the time of recording all states and territories have approved the use of Electronic Prescriptions. eScripts are now a legal form of prescription across Australia.
A core part of healthcare in Australia today is communication between healthcare providers. However many of these sensitive communications are taking place via unsecure channels, or through channels that aren’t compatible, leading to a breakdown of communication, poor health outcomes and inefficiencies.
To solve this challenge, a national initiative has been introduced to transform the way health information is exchanged in Australia. A key goal of the initiative is to equip healthcare providers with the ability to communicate with other professionals utilising secure messaging via their integrated practice management system. This will result in reduced dependency on unsecure channels such as paper-based correspondence, fax machine or post.
Here’s what you need to know about secure messaging – what it is, why it’s important, how it will impact practices and the timeline for implementation.
What is Secure Messaging?
Secure messaging enables the encrypted electronic exchange of patient healthcare information between healthcare providers. Point-to-point delivery of messages such as discharge summaries, referrals, requests and results represent the typical use case.
The electronic message is encrypted by the sender and decrypted by the receiver and therefore cannot be read if intercepted in transit.
Software vendors and their solutions, built to facilitate secure message delivery, are well established in Australasia, some with over 25 years in the market.
It’s fair to say that the majority of practices have had some exposure to secure message service providers (eg, Telstra Health Argus, Healthlink, Medical Objects and ReferralNet) and may even have more than one service enabled.
Why Does Secure Messaging Matter?
In a shared care environment, where it is necessary to exchange healthcare information, secure messaging ensures that the highest level of security and privacy is maintained. Protecting a patient’s sensitive, healthcare information and in alignment with the Privacy Act 1988. In addition, the benefits of exchanging data electronically and securely include speed, efficiency, lower risk and reduced cost.
A collaborative, nationwide approach to unify secure messaging providers is crucial to providing a seamless healthcare journey for patients, and for enabling simple and easy communication amongst healthcare providers.
Isn’t Secure Messaging Already In Place?
Imagine for a moment if our telephone service providers weren’t interoperable, for example your phone network wasn’t able to call someone you know who subscribes to another phone network. How effective would our telephone system be if this were the case? To date, we are in somewhat of a similar situation with secure messaging.
Despite the widespread adoption of secure messaging, the individual secure messaging service providers have approached messaging differently, resulting in incompatibility in many instances. The lack of interoperability has resulted in fragmented systems and communication.
Furthermore, messages and referrals generated by practitioners are often limited to providers listed in their local address book or directory, making it time consuming to locate contact details for providers outside their normal referral network. The above method also relies on the provider information being kept up to date by the practice, often leading to inaccurate information, possibly even providers that are no longer in operation.
What is Changing?
The Australian Digital Health Agency is leading a program of change, to enhance interoperability standards for secure messaging. This initiative is in direct support of the National Digital Health Strategy, to reduce barriers to using secure electronic exchange of health data and ensure interoperability between technologies. Two key changes will take place as part of this initiative.
First is the introduction of a federated provider directory capability, enabling clinical information systems and secure messaging delivery systems to search cross-directory to find accurate, trusted and validated healthcare provider electronic addresses.
Second, software providers are enhancing the message exchange format to meet an agreed standardized specification for message content – streamlined to improve interoperability across disparate service providers and clinical systems.
How is Best Practice Software Getting Involved?
Best Practice Software has actively participated in the collaboration between software providers and government bodies, to define interoperability standards for secure messaging solutions.
The development to enhance secure messaging and be conformant to the ADHA specification is currently in testing phase and the enhanced functionality will be available in Bp Premier Saffron and VIP.net Ruby SP3 in the coming months.
When Will Enhanced Secure Messaging be Available More Widely?
There are 42 software organisations taking part in the ADHA secure messaging enhancement initiative, the change program is scheduled to conclude this October so there are certainly exciting times ahead for improved data workflows and efficiencies!
Authored by:
Monica Reed Manager, Commercial & Customer Enablement at Best Practice Software
Things have changed just a bit since working from home as a Commercial Partnership Specialist. The morning commute has been replaced by a short walk to my desk. Not surprisingly, my caffeine intake has skyrocketed.
Providing Partner Support as a Commercial Partnership Specialist
Each morning after logging in and greeting the Commercial Partnerships team, I go through my emails and the to-do list. A usual day would be spent working through Partner Support cases that come through our CRM dashboard and any calls that filter down our line. I check on the dashboard throughout the day for cases from Partners requiring assistance with their integration with Bp products.
Being a (slight) perfectionist, there is always the constant battle to keep the partner cases in our queue to an absolute minimum, if not completely clear. When I hit the refresh button, the suspense is palpable. I’ve turned it into something of a game.
It can be a challenging but rewarding experience to assist our partners in resolving technical issues. Through working on different cases I have found myself exploring and learning more about Bp and healthcare overall. It has been great to learn from the team at Bp too, the experience of those around me is invaluable, and not in short supply.
Tech Reviews
In between handling partner support cases, I also conduct technical reviews with Bp Partnership applicants. As part of applying to join the Bp Partner Network, a technical review is performed to understand the applicant’s product. This includes their use cases and the access they require to different Bp products.
It’s an interesting experience to see what ideas businesses and Practices are generating. Not only are our technical reviews trying to determine whether an idea has value to a Practice, but also how these ideas positively impact the lives and wellbeing of patients. The information gathered from technical reviews are collated and a committee review is conducted at the end of each month where current and new applicants are presented for approval.
It helps to possess a reasonable amount of technical knowledge as a Commercial Partnership Specialist – being able to fully understand what each business or Practice is trying to achieve is crucial to accurately reviewing their applications.
…and More
To spice things up, the Commercial team has an endless array of projects that change things up from my usual support role. One week I could be calling our sites and creating email communications and videos as part of the Safescript roll out in Victoria. The next week I’m launched into helping with ePrescribing compliance testing, and assisting pilot sites with new versions to prescribe their first eScripts.
Filling the role of Commercial Partnership Specialist has provided a great amount of exposure in how the technical and commercial aspects of Bp intercept and work together.
The sound of the neighbourhood kids running around outside indicates that it’s time to start winding down. I look to wrap up jobs on that to-do list and check the calendar for what lies ahead tomorrow. And then it’s time to call it a day.
Actually, I might just check the CRM just one more time to make sure it’s clear.
Authored by:
Aaron Lim Commercial Partnership Specialist at Best Practice Software
It might surprise you to know that virtually all major practice management system vendors in Australasia have released, or are planning to release, their next generation solutions on the cloud. Cloud Computing is a trend that is sure to accelerate over time and is a transformation that will have a significant impact on the day-to-day operation of Practices and Practice Managers across all healthcare domains.
As Best Practice Software is undertaking the development of our own cloud-based platform, we are often asked by our clients what cloud computing entails, and what the benefits are over traditional desktop software. The following provides a brief insight into these questions.
What is Cloud Computing?
Cloud computing is a model for enabling on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
That’s quite a mouthful and not necessarily easy to understand, but it essentially identifies the five common characteristics of true cloud computing:
Broad network access This refers to the fact that resources in the cloud are available over multiple device types, ranging from common devices like laptops and workstations, to mobile phones and the like. Providers are no longer tied to the desktop or the location of their data, the benefits of which are becoming increasingly clear in these times.
On-demand self-service This refers to capabilities that manage provisioning and back-office functions. In non-cloud or traditional desktop environments, where the end user can self-provision without interacting with the provider, the downstream result has historically been inefficiency and waste. These new technologies now enable us to provide our customers with true self-service without incurring these penalties or service costs.
Resource pooling The scalability of the cloud is one of its most defining fundamental concepts. Without pooled computing, networks and storage, these services must be provisioned across multiple silos at great cost. Through resource pooling, multiple customers are sharing resources stored in the cloud with their peers, in much the same way as a telephone network operates. Because of this, the cost of resources is also shared between multiple customers.
Measured service These pooled resources can be easily monitored and reported, providing visibility into rates of resource consumption and the allocation of the costs associated with said consumption.
Rapid elasticity Elastic resources are critical in reducing costs. When accessing a cloud-based service, you only access the resources as and when you need the capacity. For most practices, a large percentage of costs associated with deploying applications stem from provisioning and maintaining a range of hardware resources. The purchase and rollout of these hardware resources requires forecasting of anticipated demand, rather than actual demand with a fixed capital expenditure commitment. The elasticity of the cloud means that you simply get what you need as and when you need it, and you only pay for what you use, resulting in a significant reduction in costs.
Cloud computing is not a single service fits all model.
There are a number of deployment models to suit different organisations. The two most prevalent deployment models used in the healthcare industry are the private cloud and public cloud.
Private cloud is generally only implemented in larger organisations due to the increased infrastructure costs that can be spread across greater number of users. They are generally designed by and built for a single customer to support specific functions critical for the success of a single line of business, and usually require more technical proficiency to maintain.
Public cloud is what is most people think of when they hear cloud computing system; it is multitenant capable and shared by a number of customers who may have nothing in common. They are typically less expensive to maintain, and leverage infrastructure provided by large tech providers such as Amazon with its AWS service and the competing Microsoft Azure service. This is the deployment model that is generally best suited for small Practices, and the variant that most Practice Managers will deal with and is the deployment model that Best Practice Software has selected for its cloud offering.
In summation, the incremental and exponential advances made in recent years has created a significant shift towards cloud computing adoption. The large number of practice management software and other health software vendors refreshing their products with cloud enablement underscores this.
Vendors benefit through shortening the time to market for new products and features, whilst at the same time delivering drastic cost reductions to customers.
The adoption of these cloud-enabled healthcare platforms will grow as users experience the benefits of a shortened enhancement lifecycle, without the associated operational disruption that comes from frequently installing desktop or client-server-based software solutions. Cloud computing brings the promise of never having to do a manual data update, or to endure the long wait for new releases to introduce new features or defect fixes. This cycle gets compressed from months, to weeks and days.
However, not all platform migrations to the cloud have been successful. Ultimately, the organisations that will be successful are those that understand that a move to the cloud is not merely a porting of technology, but rather a new way of thinking as to providing healthcare as a service, one that maximises all of the components of cloud computing.
Authored by:
Andre Broodryk Manager of Product Management at Best Practice Software
World Blood Donor Day will be celebrated around the world on the 14th of June, and it marks the start of National Blood Donor Week in Australia, to recognise and thank those who voluntarily donate blood, and raise awareness of the critical need for regular donations. First celebrated in 2004, the 14th of June date was selected to recognise the birth anniversary of Karl Landsteiner who won a Nobel Prize in 1930 for his discovery of human blood groups and development of the ABO blood typing system.
So thank you, for your life-saving gift, to each of the 500,000 Australians who gave over 1.5 million donations to Lifeblood – and the 110,000 New Zealanders who gave over 150,000 donations to the NZ Blood Service. Hear from people who donate and the difference this has made in Australia and New Zealand.
Every week, Australia needs 29,000 blood donations. New Zealand needs 3,500.
Throughout the coronavirus restrictions on peoples’ movements, donations are, and remain, an essential health service. However, fewer people are donating than usual and donation centres experienced high rates of cancellations.
Donation centres are safe places to visit and have taken steps to ensure they stay that way via screening protocols, social distancing and additional hygiene measures to protect donors and staff. To help replenish and maintain stocks – donated blood has a shelf life of 42-days – new and existing donors are needed now.
Australians and New Zealanders are known for their generosity in times of need, including the recent requests for support during the bushfires which caused the closure of several donation centres, and the Whakaari/White Island eruption requiring additional universal plasma donations.
In addition to blood, donation centres are now collecting convalescent plasma – the liquid part of blood containing antibodies – from people who have recovered after a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 and have been symptom-free for at least 28-days to support clinical trials.
Here’s how you can make a difference:
Within Australia, confirm your eligibility here and book an appointment here
Within New Zealand, confirm your eligibility here and book an appointment here
Become a regular donor
Encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become regular donors
Raise awareness of World Blood Donor Day and National Blood Donor Week within your social networks
Give blood, and make the world a healthier place.
Authored by:
Monique Willis Lead Business Analyst at Best Practice Software
On the 6th of May, Australia’s first ePrescription was issued and dispensed in Victoria. We are thrilled to announce that the first electronic prescription in Australia was processed through Best Practice Software.
See below for the full press release from Fred IT, which includes a comment from Best Practice Software CEO, Dr. Frank Pyefinch.
Australia’s first electronic prescription successfully dispensed
Leading Australian prescribing and dispensing vendors collaborate to complete electronic prescription
Australia’s first paperless electronic prescription in primary care was successfully prescribed and dispensed in Victoria yesterday, marking a significant first step in the national delivery of electronic prescriptions.
The first electronic prescribing and dispensing occurred between Anglesea Medical and Anglesea Pharmacy. It used the “token” model where the doctor sends the electronic prescription along with a code or “token” to the patient by SMS or email. The patient then forwards or presents the code to their chosen pharmacy for dispensing.
According to Dr David Corbet at Anglesea Medical who prescribed the first electronic prescription, “The process is as simple as writing the prescription in the usual manner and, with the consent of the patient, selecting that the prescription is generated as an electronic prescription.”
Pharmacist Jason Bratuskins dispensed the first electronic prescription in his Anglesea pharmacy. He commented, “our patients and staff have been profoundly influenced by the isolation requirements of COVID-19, and it has been terrific to be part of efforts to re-define how we support our patients with alternative options for fulfilling prescriptions. I was pleased to see that this could sit comfortably alongside our existing processes.”
This week’s successful electronic prescription occurred using the Best Practice prescribing system, prescription exchange service eRx Script Exchange, Fred NXT Dispense and MedView Flow.
Pharmacist and CEO of Fred IT Group, Paul Naismith said, “the achievement of the first successful electronic prescription in primary care settings is a major step forward in Australia’s provision of a digital network that provides patients with flexibility for how they access their medications. I am very proud of the Fred and eRx teams which, through ongoing innovation and hard work, have achieved this result ahead of schedule in a very challenging work environment.”
CEO of Best Practice, Dr Frank Pyefinch, was thrilled to hear that the first electronic script had been successfully transferred using Best Practice Software, saying, “our team has pulled out all stops to deliver this important functionality as quickly as possible and we expect that it will confirm that electronic prescriptions are the way of the future. It is history in the making!”
The token model will work alongside the Active Script List (ASL) to provide patients with flexibility in how they digitally access their medications. This week’s success covered the entire electronic process of the token model: prescribing electronically in Best Practice, providing the patient with a token with the required number of repeats via eRx, sending the dispensing request to the pharmacy, integrating it into the pharmacy’s workflow, based on MedView Flow, and then dispensing in Fred NXT.
Fred CEO Paul Naismith emphasised that ongoing industry collaboration will be vital to the national delivery of electronic prescriptions. Naismith concluded, “the priority from here is to continue approving participating vendor systems and understand what is needed to prepare patients, prescribers and pharmacies for a national system of electronic prescriptions. The token model and ASL are both important components of a national approach which provides patients with the flexibility and security to manage their electronic prescriptions in collaboration with their local prescriber and pharmacist.”
Media Release originally published 7 May, 2020.
Video: ePrescribing Q & A for Patients
We encourage Practices to share this video with patients and staff, to help them understand the benefits of ePrescribing.
As patients skip their regular doctor visit in the current COVID-19 climate, or attend a different clinic they think may be less busy, your Practice may accumulate records from patients that have not visited in a year or more. It is for reasons such as this, amongst others, why effective management of patient records is so crucial to your Practice.
It’s good practice to regularly search for these types of patients and mark their demographic record as ‘inactive’. Inactive patients will not appear by default in patient list screens, which helps to keep these screens limited to active and relevant patients, and reduce operator error. You can run a search and mark patients as inactive in bulk from Bp Premier’s powerful Database Search tool.
What if I need to Include Inactive Patients?
If you need to include inactive patients at any time, tick the Show Inactive Patients filter at the top of patient list screens. Inactive records will be shown with a pink background, to help your operators distinguish between inactive and active patients while managing patient records.
Search for Inactive Patients and Mark All as Inactive
You can only mark bulk patients as inactive from the Database Search. If you accidentally mark patients as inactive, you will have to manually reactivate each patient from their demographics.
From the Main Screen, select Utilities > Search and click Load Query.
Browse to C:\Program Files\Best Practice Software\BPS\SuppliedQueries\Demographics
Select Active patients who have no had a visit in the last 12 months, have no future appointments, were not created in the last six months and click Open.
In the SQL Query text box, adjust the values indicated in the query text to tweak your search, for example, to search for no visits over the last 24 months instead of the default 12.
Click Run Query.
Select File > Mark as Inactive. Click Yes when Bp Premier prompts you to confirm.
If you adjusted the query and want to run it again in the future, click Save Query and save your modified query under a different filename. You can reload your custom query at any time.
You’ve successfully cleared a group of inactive patients from your patient lists!
MORE INFORMATION ON MANAGING PATIENT RECORDS
For more information on managing patient records, the Bp Premier online help Knowledge Base contains more information on running queries and marking a single patient as inactive or deceased. Select Help > Online from the menu and type ‘inactive’ into the search bar to see more articles on this topic.
Authored by:
Jay Rose Technical Writer at Best Practice Software
For anyone currently working in the medical industry, being aware of the impacts of COVID-19 is a top priority, and that goes for us here at Best Practice Software as well. Our knowledge base is an incredibly useful repository of guides and videos, and we’ve endeavoured to keep it up to date as COVID-19 has been developing.
New COVID-19 Knowledge Base Content
We’ve been working hard to find ways that you can use Bp Premier to maximise your Practice’s efficiency when it comes to COVID-19 treatment, and you can now access some invaluable tips and tricks around managing COVID-19 in your Practice through the Bp Premier Knowledge Base.
Some of these include:
Managing COVID-19 in the appointment book: Keep track of any appointments made for patients with COVID-19 symptoms to ensure they’re distanced from regular patients or are offered telehealth appointments.
Managing telehealth and telephone appointments: With telehealth temporarily becoming the new norm, find out the best way to make telehealth work with Bp Premier in your practice, wither you’re using third-party integrated software, or non-integrated software.
Adding COVID-19 tests to your favorites: Request COVID-19 tests quickly by setting them up as pathology favorites.
Creating a COVID-19 clinical screening assessment: Save time in your consults by setting up an Autofill clinical screening assessment for potential COVID-19 patients.
Managing COVID-19 patient education: Don’t let your patients rely on dubious COVID-19 information circulating on the internet. Instead, provide them with verified, reputable information available from Bp Premier’s patient education library or create your own collection of COVID-19 patient education materials.
COVID-19 letters and templates: Download the May data update to access new predefined COVID-19 templates to be used in a variety of scenarios.
COVID-19 database queries: You can now run a query to find out which of your patients fall into categories that are considered at risk, so you can act accordingly to ensure they remain safe.
COVID-19 diagnoses and reasons for visit: A range of new diagnoses and reasons for visit have been added to Bp Premier. These can be added to the patient record when finalising a patient’s visit.
COVID-19 clinical reminders: Remind patients who require testing to follow correct procedures by setting up clinical reminder messages.
COVID-19 data updates: We’re constantly updating Bp Premier with new data and features, such as MBS numbers and templates, to help you combat COVID-19. Make sure you’ve downloaded the latest data update to take advantage of these.
COVID-19 bulk billing incentives for at risk patients: Confused about the new bulk billing incentive numbers for at risk patients? Find out how these should be used.
Instructional Videos
We also understand that different people process information in different ways, with some preferring videos over written instructions. With this in mind, we’ve been working on adding more video content to the knowledge base, to ensure processes are as easy to follow as possible.
We’ve recently added video for topics such as:
Creating customised COVID-19 patient education
Adding a current prescription
Accessing Bp Utilities
COVID-19 appointment booking process
Creating custom fee schedules
Cloning pathology or radiology preferences
Paying for services with a deposit
Reconciling online claiming batches with rejections
Reversing unbanked payments
Select the ‘video’ link in the Bp Premier knowledge base header to view our collection of instructional videos.
Step-by-Step Articles
Finally, we’ve been working on creating articles in the new step-through format that documents a process from end-to-end. These are designed to guide you seamlessly through some of the more complex or lengthy processes in Bp Premier.
We’ve added step-through articles for topics such as:
Managing pathology and radiology results
Setting up the clinical module
Setting up the management module
Merging Bp Premier databases
Configuring medicare certificates
Setting up a multiple-location practice.
Visit the knowledge base by selecting ‘Help’, and then clicking ‘Online’, or by pressing F1 on your keyboard from within Bp Premier.
Authored by:
Jennifer Stewart Technical Writer at Best Practice Software
For those who may not be aware, the Australian Government has fast-tracked ePrescribing legislation in an effort to assist Practices and patients with quickly and safely receiving prescription medication, and without exposing either party to unnecessary risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Best Practice Software is excited to be a part of the electronic prescribing revolution. In fact, the first electronic prescription issued in Australia was processed through Bp Premier!
However, a lot of people are asking us all sorts of questions around the implementation of electronic prescribing, and what they need to do or know in order to be prepared for the rollout.
If you count yourself among those unsure of what to do, don’t worry. Our Bp Learning team has put together an incredibly valuable, FREE Masterclass webinar focused on the Bp Premier JADE SP3 update, which includes electronic prescribing functionality.
What Will be Covered in the Electronic Prescribing Masterclass Webinar?
Great question! Firstly, two guest presenters from the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) will be introducing electronic prescribing, and will cover answers to common asked questions such as:
What is electronic prescribing?
What is a token, and what does it look like?
How does a patient receive a token?
How does a patient get their medication?
What if the patient loses their token?
Following on from that, our expert trainers will take you through how to use the eScript functionality in Bp Premier. This is a must see if you would like to know more about:
How to enable and configure your system
The costs involved
Patient consent requirements
How to generate an eScript
What to do if a patient loses the token
What to do if the token is sent to an incorrect mobile number or email
How to cancel an eScript
Turning on electronic prescriptions in Bp Premier
Finally, we invite you to stay on at the end when we open the floor to your questions.
But wait, there’s more! We’ll also be covering some handy resources that you can use to educate your Practice staff and patients about electronic prescribing. If you’d like to take a look at some of these resources early, we’ve provided some links below for you:
