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Concludes foundation for Austria’s country wide electronic patient record

CSC (NYSE:CSC) in Austria has announced that it has successfully built an integral part of Austria’s electronic health record (EHR), the Master Patient Index (MPI).

The MPI, which was delivered on time and on budget, will be an essential component in enabling Austria’s healthcare professionals to perform a nationwide search for patient information using the patient’s social security number or eCard. Productive usage of the system will occur after approval of the act on Electronic Health Records in Austria and will be aligned with the ELGA master plan. 

The system is designed to locate electronic records, which are held and stored at a local level, and enable the Austrian EHR to make them available to the appropriate medical staff in different departments and hospitals throughout Austria.

The records will be presented to healthcare professionals through a detailed, single view and ensure that staff have the most up to date information about the patient they are treating.

The Austrian Federal Ministry for Health holds overall responsibility for Austria’s electronic patient record programme, ELGA (Elektronische Gesundheitsakte). In January 2010, a division of the country’s social insurance department, ITSV (IT Services der Sozialversicherung) awarded CSC the contract to build the Master Patient Index and integrate it into ELGA.

“The MPI will provide high quality data which can be used by healthcare providers to reduce time spent trying to find patient information,” said Dr. Thomas Hladschik, senior program manager at ITSV, who leads the project from ITSV. 

“When the electronic health record is complete, clinicians will have all the relevant information at their fingertips, ensuring that there is no need for medical tests to be carried out multiple times, documents are accessible nationwide and the end-to-end process around patient care is enhanced and accelerated.”

When fully established the project will see demographic data of Austria’s eight million citizens loaded from the country’s existing Central Partner Management (ZPV) application, also developed by CSC.

The MPI is one of a number of components that will make up the complete  patient record. Other aspects include a Health Service Provider Index, Document Register, Authorisation Concept, Logging System and Health Portal. These components will allow for several core applications to be accessed by clinical staff including discharge information and documentation, laboratory results, x-ray results and eMedication. 

“This is a great achievement for CSC and a clear example of how a national programme can be successful,” said Guy Hains, president, CSC International. 

“By providing a system that automatically displays detailed patient information at the point of care, clinicians will be able to spend more time treating their patients and providing the best and safest care possible. With this, CSC is transforming healthcare with better information for better decision. We are proud to be part of the Austrian vision for ‘connected health’ and the advanced architecture that has been implemented.”

Source: CSC Healthcare