Doctors in Victoria say patients are dying due to inadequate technology and poor communication between hospitals and local GPs, and have called for $50 million to help fix the problem.
Privacy laws mean emails about patients medical history have to be encrypted, but only a few hospitals have the technology to do that.
The chairman of the Australian Medical Association Victoria’s section of general practice, Dr Michael Levick, said vital patient information was instead being passed on via written notes or by fax.
He said that meant updates about major changes to patient treatment while they were in hospital were often delayed or even missed completely.
Dr Levick said communication methods between GPs and hospitals had not changed much in the past two decades.
“It is either a handwritten or typed piece of paper that comes with the patient, sometimes fax, sometimes there’s a phone call from the doctor at the hospital to the general practitioner,” Dr Levick said.
“Sometimes there’s a letter in the mail that comes eventually, or sometimes there’s absolutely nothing.
“Some hospitals do have the ability to send secure messages, which is like an email which arrives at the doctor’s surgery immediately, but that is few and far between.
“This leads to patients not getting adequately treated or monitored when they come out of hospital.”
Dr Levick said in one instance a patient died because their GP was not told about their blood thinning medication, which required daily monitoring.
“That patient’s information didn’t get to the GP in time and the patient wasn’t aware of the change due to various circumstances and unfortunately the patient’s blood did thin too much because it wasn’t monitored, and the patient bled internally to death.”
He said the AMA was asking the Victorian Government for a $50 million investment over the next three years to improve lines of communication.
“It would definitely put an end to the problem if there was a reliable, uniform system of communication between hospitals and general practitioners. There would be a much better level of care … and safety for the community,” Dr Levick said.
“We understand it can’t happen overnight, but a good plan to achieve this would be something the AMA would be very happy with.”
Health funding to be revealed in state budget: Minister
Health Minister Jill Hennessy said she was deeply concerned about the issues raised by the AMA, but said she could not comment specifically on its request.
She said the broader issue of health funding would be addressed in next month’s state budget.
“There are areas for improvement, they will require investment and in the forthcoming state budget we’ll be making some significant announcements around investing in our health system including communications,” Ms Hennessy said.
“It will take time to turn the heath system around. We’ve had $1 billion cut out over the last four years and we’re facing $13 billion [to be] cut from the Federal Government.
“There are areas where there is good practice, but there are certainly areas where there is room for significant improvement.
“There are areas that need to prioritised over others and those issues will be informing the announcements we’ll be making in the forthcoming budget.”