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Thursday, 24 December 2009 |
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In August this year Houston Medical turned 21. In 1988 Jane Bond, physiotherapist in Inglewood was the first customer in New Zealand to install Houston Medical Physiotherapy. It is with considerable delight to know that 21 years later both Houston Medical and the Inglewood Physiotherapy are still thriving and Houston Medical continues to be by far the largest supplier of software for physiotherapy and allied health in New Zealand.
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From that very small start with one programmer, thanks Joseph, one salesman, me and Alan Chew who provided the original vision and the money! Then moving on to 1992 our first software installs were made in Australia in practices in Toronto, Bundaberg and Perth and again I'm delighted to advise that those first three are still Houston users today, although of course, many versions later.
This year has been an equally momentous one for Houston Medical. As will be covered in more detail in subsequent sections, staff numbers continue to grow and after at least ten programming years of development at a cost running into the millions, Houston Medical VIP.net has been installed in Hamilton, Auckland, Lautoka, Suva, Townsville, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. With over 300,000 lines of new code and users now exceeding 200 that works out at 1,500 lines per user! And to cap off the year, just last week we received our Notice of Integration from Medicare Australia advising that VIP.net has passed all tests for HIC, Easy Claim and DVA Paperless.
For General Practice in New Zealand we are now integrated with Dunedin Medical School’s Best Practice and I am told that this service will also be provided free of charge to our General Practice clients across the Tasman so suggest you ask and we will find out.
To better see the breakthrough features in VIP.net I urge you to have a look at our ever increasing videos on this website and then return as they continue to be increased and updated.
As time is precious in this last week before Christmas the following sections provide more detail for each specialty so if you do have the opportunity in the New Year, spend some time browsing!
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For physiotherapy where it all began. Houston continues to lead from the front but also respecting the rising competition is determined to stay one step ahead. Houston the largest supplier of software for Physiotherapy in New Zealand is also the largest supplier of information to the ACC. With the major changes in ACC funding for Physiotherapy we have been in almost weekly contact and have now entered into contracts with the ACC to make sure the new requirements for reporting and billing are in place within the timelines required. Support staff are trying to get even closer to leading practices and continue to increase our extensive library of user-defined forms which are available free of charge and can be used by all clients on the gold version.
In Ophthalmology As the largest supplier of specialised ophthalmology practice management software in New Zealand and Australia Houston VIP.net has had major success securing contracts for retinal diabetic screening with the Counties Manukau DHB, Canterbury DHB and the Fred Hollows Foundation for Fiji. CLICK TO SEE THE ARTICLE ABOUT RETINAL SCREENING IN FIJI The Lions Eye Institute in Perth is going completely paperless with Houston VIP.net in January 2010. This will be our largest install to date with 70 concurrent users connecting three remote practices. At the recent RANZCO conference in Brisbane Houston VIP.net featured in the Zeiss presentation as being the first software, possibly in the world and certainly in this part of the world, to interface with the new Zeiss Forum software. VIP 2000 has not been overlooked and the cataract audit is now available to all clients on the latest version. CHECK OUT THE CATARACT AUDIT ARTICLE HERE
Orthopaedics. This is a relatively new area for Houston Medical although we did have a small exposure some years back. As can be seen by the accompanying press release from Motion Computing Houston Medical is honoured to have provided the software for Professors George and Deedee Murrell in their quite amazing new practice in Kogarah, Sydney. The press release does not describe it adequately but READ IT HERE or WATCH THIS VIDEO showing off the practice. The attention to detail in converting this old 1920s church into a dermatology and orthopaedic consulting practice is amazing. I could not leave this section without paying a particular complement to Dr Neville Strick of Hamilton. Like George, Neville approached me over a year ago and wanted to work with an innovative software company that was not afraid to spend money, push the boundaries. I believe we have achieved those goals and 2010 will be a very special year for our clients and Houston Medical.
Other Specialties. With the growth in day surgeries throughout Australia, and we believe shortly in New Zealand, in the middle of last year we decided to also completely rewrite our day surgery package is a fully integrated part of VIP.net. This can work as a standalone package or as a fully integrated solution as will be installed by day surgeries in Perth and Brisbane early in the New Year. We have tried to approach the complexities of the health fund contracts head on! As much as possible rules are applied automatically and entries are validated continuously to try and afforded those time-consuming mistakes. As well as general practice, physiotherapy, ophthalmology and orthopaedics Houston is now fully involved and has referenced sites for general and bariatric surgery, cardiology, endoscopy, physiotherapy and sports medicine. Over 2010 we intend to continuously improve our web to allow a more interactive experience.
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Wednesday, 23 December 2009 |
This video clip showcases Dr George Murrell's new Orthopaedic practice in Australia - a conversion of a church into an ultra-modern showcase of technology using Motion Computing TABLET PC's and Houston Medical's VIP.NET software package.
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Tuesday, 22 December 2009 |
Retinal diabetes screening systems get smarter in Fiji
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The fight against diabetes induced eye disease in the Pacific has taken a big step forward with the installation of new retinal diabetic screening software in Fiji’s Lautoka and Suva Hospitals.
This advance in the prevention of blindness has been funded with the support of the Fred Hollows Foundation and the Reddy Lions Vision Group. This is part of the Retinal Diabetes Screening (RDS) programme, developed over a period of more than 10 years under the guidance of Auckland University’s Associate Professor Gillian Clover (now retired), in association with the Lions District 202A New Zealand, Lions International SightFirst programme, and local Lions Clubs in Lautoka and Ba, and supported throughout by Hamilton-based practice management software company, Houston Medical.
The new software, VIP.net Vision, is an advanced practice management system which provides much improved functionality and usability for practitioners in hospitals, and allows better use to be made of strictly limited specialist medical staff time.
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“Houston’s software has made a huge contribution to consistency of care for persons with diabetes eye disease in Fiji,” said Associate Professor Clover. “It enables patient ophthalmic records to be available no matter where the patient presents – whether it be at base hospital or outreach mobile services to peripheral hospitals. Each patient’s information can be retained and reviewed as they progress through appointments for screening, ophthalmic examination and laser treatments.”
However, while both Fijian hospitals now benefit from world class ophthalmology practice software, local infrastructure constraints required additional development by Houston Medical’s software team. Since broadband data communications are available only in the main centres, in order to run RDS clinics in outlying areas, Houston Medical staff had to develop a special programme to allow copies of the data (including high-resolution photographic images) to be stored on a notebook PC for later download to the hospital’s main systems.
“As well as more functionality, usability and reliability, the new software offers much greater customisation capability and automation,” says Houston Medical managing director Derek Gower. “With VIP.net’s rules based workflow, alerts pop up when important data is overlooked, so now technicians or semi-skilled operators can be engaged in screening of patients with only qualifying cases referred to the ophthalmologist.”
The World Health Organisation estimates that almost 12% of Fijians and 20% of Indofijians have diabetes. Although there are no official figures on the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes, according to one report, is the second most common cause of vision loss, after cataract, in one hospital in Fiji.
Now that the Fiji hospital implementation of VIP.net Vision is bedded in, Houston Medical will be working on similar services for hospitals in Tonga, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, in accordance with the ‘Pacific Islands Guidelines for the Screening and Management of Diabetic Retinopathy, 2009’, which Houston VIP.net supports.
Houston Medical has been contracted by Canterbury DHB to provide retinal diabetic screening software systems and has also just completed six months of evaluation work with Counties Manukau DHB for upgrade of their ophthalmology systems to Houston Medical’s VIP.net Vision.
“This is further vindication of our work in this area which spans more than ten years throughout Australasia and the Pacific,” said Mr Gower.
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Monday, 30 November 2009 |
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The recent installation at Dr George Murrell's practice in Australia, with his innovative use of TABLET PC's and Houston Medical's VIP.NET software has generated a lot of interest in the IT and medical industry.
Here are several very prominent websites running the recent article showcasing the system!
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