My Aged Care e-Referral Q & A – Heather Gewin

Bay Village Medical Centre in Killarney Vale, NSW, is an early adopter of healthcare technology, and has been using My Aged Care e-Referrals since 2019. In this Q & A with Heather Gewin, Practice Manager at Bay Village Medical Centre, we hear about the practice’s early adoption of e-Referrals, the benefits experienced and insights into how the practice’s operations have been enhanced. From improving efficiencies, to saving time for doctors and enhancing patient care, the adoption of e-Referrals has marked a significant improvement in processing aged care referrals.

What technological challenges prompted your practice to start using My Aged Care e-Referrals?

Bay Village Medical Centre adopted My Aged Care e-Referrals in 2019 to help streamline efficiencies in care for the doctors in our practice who regularly see around eight aged care patients in local nursing homes per home visit. Our doctors have a number of older patients in their care who require referrals to My Aged Care on a regular basis. Our practice wanted to embrace the technological changes happening in healthcare and make everything as electronic as possible. We found fax referrals to be unreliable and required extra work for the doctors as they had to use the fax machine in the general administration area. My Aged Care e-Referrals are faster and can be done straight from the doctor’s consulting room using our practice management software. e-Referrals are time saving and efficient.

What benefits has your practice experienced since using My Aged Care e-Referrals?

Our practice has noticed an increase in efficiency and time saving since we started using My Aged Care e-Referrals. e-Referrals have cut down the paperwork our doctors need to do. We’ve come a long way from paper files. The integration of e-Referrals within a patient’s electronic medical record provide continuity of care and are specific to an individual patient’s needs. We’ve found that e-Referrals lessen our doctors’ workloads. Having the ability to upload patient information easily and electronically saves valuable time and helps patients to get referred faster.

Anything else you’d like to add about your experience of using My Aged Care e-Referrals?

Moving to e-Referrals is the way to go. e-Referrals aid in the continuity of care, drive practice efficiency and address individual patient needs.