In late 2011, Westmead Hospital Cancer Care Clinic undertook to make the bold move over to an electronic medical record system for cancer patients.

By mid 2012, it had been decided to use and roll-out Charm Health EMR system which had been subject to a pilot at Blacktown Hospital for the last 6mths.

The issue was that the existing Charm Health EMR was not geared to field of oncology and both the hospital and software developer were at loggerheads

In July 2012, Alisdair Blackman was called in to gather up the requirements for a new EMR from across a large number of different and often opposing disciplines to try and synthesize a common set of universal requirements for the EMR. Working with medical oncologists, radiology oncologists, hematologists, palliative care, allied health, nursing, administration and hospital management, Digital Rehab’s Alisdair Blackman documented the business requirements and made specific interface change recommendations to the existing Charm Health system so as to ensure optimum take up by all across Westmead, Blacktown and Liverpool Hospitals.

While change is gradual in the public health system, there is a hope that by mid 2014, the requested changes to the Charm Health EMR can be made and deployed successfully.