As we reflect on how quickly another busy year has passed for Team Bp, I would like to take this opportunity to say “thank you” to all our customers and business colleagues with whom we have worked throughout the year.
This year marks the 25th year since Lorraine and I first entered the medical software business when we launched our very first software product (called Medical Director) in 1992 – at a time when computers in medical practice were considered a novelty.   It has been a long and, at times, challenging journey, but ultimately very rewarding to witness and, in some instances, influence such a big change.

It has been an honour to have shared this journey with many incredibly talented and loyal people who have shared our vision and have worked very hard to produce the Best Practice software and support services.  While we have had many successes, we know that we still have more to do and challenges to overcome. 

A big thank you to our very hard-working Chief Operations Officer Craig Hodges and to our two new General Managers - Janet Whitmore (Customer & Commercial) and John Rayfield (Innovation & Development)  - who have each brought a wealth of knowledge and experience to our growing business.  And to everyone in Team Bp who continue to work hard in trying to meet our customers’ and industry partners’ expectations – a big “thank you”!

A special shout out to the members of our CLAC (Clinical Leadership Advisory Committee) who provide great feedback and suggestions to our Executive team and to our many beta testers who work closely with our development team.

Lorraine and I hope that you all get to enjoy some much-needed time with your family and loved ones over the festive season.  We hope it will be a safe and happy time for everyone.

We look forward to catching up with you in 2018. 

Sincerely

Dr Frank Pyefinch

 

 

To support the National Cervical Screening Program our December Data Update will include the new test lists supported by this new national initiative as well as the inclusion of a new Reminder reason ‘Cervical screening’ with a 5 year default interval. The Pap smear and Cervical cytology test names will also be removed from the test list.

Please Note! The December Data Update is a required pre-requisite for Lava Service Pack 3 and should be applied as soon as it is available

For those clinics who do not apply the December Data Update, the new tests will need to be manually added at the time of completing the Pathology request.

Further information regarding the National Cervical Screening Program, including the revised testing criteria, can be found on the government website: www.cancerscreening.gov.au/cervical 
Click here to check out our fantastic Knowledge Base for further information regarding our Lava Service Pack 3 Release!

Lava Service Pack 3 is on its way and is expected to be available mid-December. This release includes some important changes to support the National Cervical Screening Program including:
• Pathology Request Screen: additional Cervical Screening details have been added and are activated on requesting the new tests
• Patient Record: Cervical screening page in the patient record has been split into two sections displaying the old Pap smear results in the top half of the page and the new CST results in the lower half.
• Recording a Screening Result: The data entry window for entering screening results has been modified to allow entry of both older Pap smear results as well as the new data elements that are included in the new reports.
• Patient Record: Changes to the Preventive Health alert to support the new requirements.

Please note!!! The new test list is included in our December Data Update which is a pre-requisite of the Lava Service Pack 3 release. Please ensure that the December update is applied as soon as it is available. Keep an eye on our website and your registered email address for announcements.

Other changes also occurring in this release include support for clinics participating in the Healthcare Homes trial and support for the uploading of Pathology and Radiology results to My Health Record.

Our popular free webinar series Bp Masterclass has also started with classes continuing next week. Click here to secure your place now.     

AND don’t forget to click here  to check out our ever popular Bp Knowledge Base to access Release Notes, Update Instructions, Quick Reference Guides and everything Lava Service Pack 3.

In the last issue of Evolution we featured the Bp Allied Support Team. Whenever you phone for Bp Allied Support you will be speaking to one of our friendly team, who are now international! You could be speaking to someone in Sydney Australia or Hamilton New Zealand. But wherever they are, you can be assured they are experts in their field.

And the rest of the Bp Allied team are leaders in their fields too. Paula and Melissa are Account Specialists, with Leagh looking after Sales. And to ensure that Bp Allied is constantly evolving- Glen and Suresh look after Development.

Go Team Bp Allied!

Australian and New Zealand users of Bp VIP.net would have received notification of the general release of Bp VIP.net 514 version. We hope you have upgraded with little interruption to the day to day running of your practice.

We would like to gauge how many of our clients have upgraded to the new version or, if not, if they plan to.  We have developed this quick and easy survey to give us your views. Please take a minute to fill it out online so we can look after your needs here.

Please do not hesitate to contact our Bp VIP.net Support team if your version is 508 to assist your upgrade of if you require general assistance with your upgrade. Call us on (Aus) 1300 40 1111 or (NZ) 0800 40 1111.

Bp Premier features in a video released by the Australian Digital Health Agency.
The video which you can see here demonstrates Bp Premier linking in with My Health Record for a GP’s treatment of a patient with a chronic condition. 

Dr Ron Malpas (MB,BS; FRACGP; PGCertClinEd; MAAPM) of Kirwan Strive Health and Physiotherapy has been a GP in his practice based in a western suburb of Townsville for more than 30 years.
Bp Premier is the software of choice in his surgery and all of his team use My Health Record.

My Health Record is a secure online summary of a patient’s health information. They can control what goes into it, and who is allowed to access it. Patients can choose to share their health information with their doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers.

A significant proportion of medication errors that lead to Adverse Drug Events (ADE) may be prevented through increased accessibility to patient information, such as that provided by My Health Record.

Here are the statistics from 2017 My Health Record system Return to Government Benefits Model:
• 2% to 3% of hospital admissions are caused by medication errors (230,000 per year at a cost
of $1.2 billion annually)
• 2 of every 3 patients experience a medication error on admission
• Over 3% of people staying in hospital experienced an ADE as a cause of, or during admission in an Australian study – over 10% of these were considered life threatening
• 12% to 13% of discharge summaries contain medication errors (2 per patient)

“My Health Record is easy to use because on the software programme of Bp Premier – it’s just the click of a button and we have access to pharmaceutical information, any discharge summaries, shared health summaries uploaded from other practices and the hospitals – so I think it’s something that we would all, in the future, realise the value of,” says Dr Malpas.

The importance of backups…and having a disaster recovery plan

It is good practice to perform a restore of the backup on a test server. This is recommended because backup media is often damaged in transit.

Test servers have two benefits: you can regularly test that your backups are working, and also provide a safety net should your main server fail. If the practice has only a few users, you may be able to use a medium specification PC as a test server. However, at larger practices, you would require a higher specification for the PC or even a true server machine.

Install Bp Premier on the test server with the same version as the live server, and upgrade the test server each time a drug and data update and program update are released. The test server also must have the same SQL version or higher  as the live server.

Discuss your backup process with your IT support company when you are discussing your disaster recovery plan.
• Daily backups are stored in an offsite location.
• A spare Bp Premier backup server is maintained and kept up to date with all Bp Premier and MIMS updates in case of primary server failure.
• Daily backups are restored to the backup server to maintain data currency in case of failure.

As always, the Bp Support team are here to help: 1300 40 1111 in Australia and 0800 40 1111 in New Zealand.

Bp’s popular Forum is now on the new-look website. 

As you can imagine, it has been a huge job converting it to the new Wordpress website and migrating the thousands of Forum posts. 

Some functions you are used to weren’t “out of the box” with the new system, including Search functionality, and our team have been working hard to develop these. 

Other functions that you’ve been asking for are very close to release:
• Private Replies - Plugin Installed
• bbPress Live Topic Suggestions - Plugin Installed
• GD bbPress Toolbox Pro - Plugin Installed
• Forum Archive Search re-indexed
• Mark all forums as read capability added
• Last reply activity repaired
• Time limit for replies disabled

We are also working on the design of the page – the last thing we want it to look is “boring” – though we can always be assured your Forum posts will be anything than boring!  Our next phase includes an exciting customer portal, MyBp, which should be released within the next 2 months.  We’ll keep you posted!

We have developed two new Forums – one for Bp Allied and one for Bp VIP.net. 

We invite all users to use this page to shar views, news and information.

Of course, if you ever have urgent support questions, our Support Team will be here to help. Call us on 1300 40 1111 in Australia and 0800 40 1111 in New Zealand.

Following the successful release of the Lava edition of our software which saw the release of our brand new reporting suite, improved accounting workflows, better support for multiple location and the introduction of Tyro multi-merchant, we are offering sites not currently using our management module the opportunity to see what all of the excitement is about!

With our patient app ‘Best Health’ to be released in 2018, making the move to Bp Management is more exciting than ever!

Contact our sales team today to take advantage of:
- One hour free product demonstration, tailored to your clinics needs
- Up to 12 months free subscription to the management module (or part thereof if the offer is taken up part way through the current subscription period)
- Upon purchase, a free one hour tailored remote training session provided by one of our experienced Training Specialists

Further information regarding Bp Premier Australia can be found on our brand new website, www.bpsoftware.net or contact a member of our sales team on 1300 40 1111 for further information.

Diagnostic Results and the My Health Record

Pathology laboratories and diagnostic imaging services are now sharing reports with the My Health Record.  This means that you, your patient and other health care providers will be able to access a patient’s results in their My Health Record, regardless of the health care provider who has requested them.

How does it work?
Results you have requested or been nominated to receive a copy of, will still be sent directly to you using the existing processes.  If your patient has a My Health Record:
• The report will be uploaded to their My Health Record by the diagnostics service and will be immediately available to all members of the patient’s health care team; and
• The report will be available for your patient to view after seven days. This gives you time to review the report and, if necessary, contact your patient to discuss the results before they can see them in their My Health Record.

Patient consent to upload pathology reports
If a patient has a My Health Record, diagnostic reports may be uploaded to that record.  It is not necessary for you, or the diagnostic service, to seek consent from patients every time. 
If you or your patient, in consultation with you, do not want a pathology report uploaded to the My Health Record, withdrawal of consent should be communicated to the pathology laboratory.
Bp Premier has introduced changes in Lava SP3 that make it very straightforward to indicate withdrawal of consent on the request form.
A patient may withdraw consent or ask that a report not be uploaded at any time up until the report is uploaded to their My Health Record.  Thereafter, the patient may choose to remove the report from view or set document access controls.  See consumer guide Removing a document from your My Health Record or setting document access controls available from www.digitalhealth.gov.au.