“The acquisition is a strong strategic fit for DCA,” said Declan Ryan, DCA’s Chief Executive Officer. “Communicare provides further expansion into the community services sector and a strong presence in Western Australia. It’s also an excellent fit with DCA’s existing health and community services business division and enables both companies to increase their service delivery capability”

The focus of the alliance is to support people to remain out of hospitals and institutions, so that they can be cared for with dignity and within their community. Communicare is currently Australia’s leading supplier of software to the indigenous and remote rural health population. DCA’s product TCM supports community based service delivery to the aged, disabled and mentally ill, and its product Argus provides secure messaging to support secure communication of electronic health records. The combined organisation will be responsible for over 300 community care organisations represented in every Australian state and territory, as well as supporting electronic messaging with over 7500 GPs, specialists and allied health providers.

Under the arrangement, DCA has acquired Communicare, and the new organisation will accelerate the development and implementation of integrated health services across the nation. “We are committed to the adoption of standards, such as the recently gazetted Secure Messaging Delivery (SMD) specification, the use of HL7 Clinical Document Architecture, and support for the evolvement of the Personally Controlled Health Record (PCEHR) “ said Peter Young, DCA’s Executive General Manager, Health and Community Services. “These standards will enable health records to be securely shared, and empower healthcare providers with information to improve the quality and timeliness of care.”

The coming week will see the live production of Australia’s first implementation of SMD and CDA, at the Ampilatwatja Health Service out of Alice Springs, as part of the Northern Territory Continuity of Care Project. This project has been a collaboration between the Northern Territory Department of Health, the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance (AMSANT), DCA and Communicare. Providers in the medical service will receive secure discharge summaries from the NT Health hospitals, and be able to store and retrieve documents from the shared electronic health record operated by Dept of Health NT. “We have been working with DCA for some time on this project”, said Brian Dunstan, founder of Communicare. “It has given us the opportunity to see some of the opportunities for future collaboration”.

Commenting on the announcement, CEO of the Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance (AMSANT) John Paterson said that the new alliance has welcomed “the strengthening” of Communicare.

“Over the last 14 years, Communicare has been a strong partner with the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health sector by providing a quality product that has enabled health services to accurately record, report on and monitor patient health data. As such AMSANT welcomes the strengthening of Communicare through this alliance with DCA, which promises to improve patient data management, and therefore ultimately health outcomes for Aboriginal people.”

For more information:
Communicare : www.communicaresystems.com.au
DCA Health & Community Services: www.health.data.com.au

Peter Young
Executive General Manager
Health & Community Services
Database Consultants Australia
Level 5, 355 Spencer Street
West Melbourne 3003
m: 0412868236
e: [email protected]