NEWS RELEASE
Doctors in the Australian capital choose New Zealand’s Intrahealth software to power their clinical systems
Auckland, New Zealand. 22 August 2003.
The ACT (Australian Capital Territory) Division of General Practice has entered into a strategic alliance with New
Zealand’s medical software developer Intrahealth to supply clinical and patient management software for general
practitioners in Canberra and surrounding areas.
Similar to Independent Practitioner Associations (IPA) in New Zealand, Divisions of General Practice were established in
1992 to support general practitioners as they look after the primary health care needs of all Australians. Activities
relating to information technology were described as a core role for Divisions in a report released last month by the
Commonwealth Minister for Health and Ageing, Senator Kay Patterson.
The agreement with Intrahealth strengthens the information management and information technology support role provided
by the ACT Division of General Practice to its members. It will also allow the Division to be proactive in dealing with
information technology rather than continue reacting to problems as they arise.
Dr Glynn Kelly, President, ACT Division of General Practice, has been an ardent advocate of clinical computing for many
years. “We chose Intrahealth for several reasons” says Dr Kelly “They share the view that Divisions are here to support
GPs and have been proactive in working with us. Profile, their product, is a solid medical software package. We can do
some minor programming within it and tailor it for local use. That’s terrific!”
Intrahealth has been providing software to Australian general practitioners since 2002 and Profile is highly regarded as
an integrated clinical and practice management system. In New Zealand, over 3000 clinicians use the company’s software
and installations include the Navy Hospital in Devonport, Auckland.
“Our strategy has always been around provider networks such as Divisions” says Dr Mark Matthews, Chief Executive Officer
of Intrahealth. “Divisions are good at supporting GPs because they are close to them and know best what their needs are.
So we decided to provide some tools within the software program that will allow them to adapt it to meet their customer
needs.”
The Division taking the role of providing primary support to users of Profile reduces the costs to Intrahealth. “We pass
this saving on to the Division who in turn pass it on to their members” says Dr Matthews, “Reducing the cost burden of
good clinical software greatly facilitates its adoption in general practice”.
Dr Kelly agrees “This is a significant benefit to the members of the ACT Division of General Practice who now have
access to good software at significant savings.”
Adoption of information technology in general practice is key to achieving the goal to develop a system-wide framework
to support health information exchange between all sectors of the health system, a joint action area for 2003-2004 under
the memorandum of understanding between the ACT Division of General Practice and ACT Health.
More information on Intrahealth and the ACT Division of General Practice can be found on their respective websites
www.intrahealth.com and www.actdgp.asn.au
ENDS