RIMS is an electronic referral system (eReferral) allowing hospital staff to generate referrals to agencies fully electronically for delivery via encrypted email or fax. RIMS is linked to the hospital patient administration system (PAS) from which it gets patient demographic and episode data, avoiding the need to enter this manually. RIMS is in use virtually all hospitals in the Grampians region of Victoria (from Ballarat to Horsham).
eReferrals are generated as DHS SCTT tools or as custom forms as required. Connecting Care is used for the delivery of PKI encrypted emails through the use of web services and XML. Fullly digital end-to-end delivery of eReferrals has been achived between RIMS and The Care Manager.
Use of RIMS has resulted in a significant reduction of the effort involved in completing SCTT tools for referrals.
This application won a Highly Commended in "Category 9: Innovation in Information Technology" at the 2006 Victorian Public Healthcare Awards.
The DHS Electronic Referral study and NHETA have shown significant interest in RIMS - as one of the first fully operational eReferral program in Australia. |