Health info rolls out

By LCDR Neil Smeaton

CPL Kerry Sears trials HealthKEYS, a new health information management system for ADF personnel.

THE roll-out of the ADF’s revolutionary new health information management system, HealthKEYS, will begin on August 16 in units based in Darwin.

For the first time, Defence will have the ability to accurately and quickly report on the health readiness of not only individuals and units, but also the ADF as a whole.

HealthKEYS will be fully implemented by late 2008 after the completion of the project’s second phase, giving every ADF member a full electronic health record accessible from any military base in Australia.

The director of the HealthKEYS Project, Terry Knox, said the system would incorporate practice and financial management, followed by full clinical management for both medical and dental diagnosis and treatment.

“A member based in Townsville and on leave in WA will be able to attend any West Australian health unit and have his or her health record immediately available to the treating clinician,” he said.

“The benefits to the member from this initiative alone are considerable, ensuring consistency of health care between the Services, between commands and across distance.”

Mr Knox said ADF units based in Darwin would be the first to benefit from the roll-out, which would be completed in the Northern Territory by the end of October.

By the end of 2004, HealthKEYS should have been implemented in the ACT and south-east Queensland. In 2005, implementation would occur in WA, SA, southern NSW and the Sydney region, Townsville and finally Tasmania and Victoria.

By 2006, implementation in major fleet units and other deployable units would have been completed.

Mr Knox said once HealthKEYS had been implemented in a unit health readiness data would be entered into HealthKEYS and passed electronically to PMKeyS and Defence Health personnel would take administrative responsibility for ADF member health readiness data.

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