Australian Defence Force
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has in recent years faced new and increasing demands for operations such as humanitarian relief, evacuations, peacekeeping and peace-enforcement - and this trend is likely to continue.
The ADF’s goal is to proactively manage the health of the defence force. The challenges for the ADF in achieving this goal include:
- The rationalisation of health management for the three services of the defence forces – Army, Navy and Airforce
- To have ready access to information that determines which personnel can be deployed at any given point
- To proactively monitor and manage injuries and illnesses.
In 1996 the ADF piloted ibaclinicals, IBA Health’s suite of clinical care software, to meet these challenges. IBA Health demonstrated that it could deliver an online, real time, integrated health system for over 50 000 Army, Navy Airforce personnel.
Based on the success of the pilot, the Department of Defence signed the HealthKEYS Project for ibaclinicals. The HealthKEYS project will provide the ADF with a health practice and clinical management system, which is “integrated, tri service and networked”.
ADF HealthKEYS Functionality
The solution will include appointment scheduling, health resource management, generation of routine patient recall notices and electronic health records.
Benefits for the ADF
The personnel’s’ health information will be carried on secure Defence communication links thereby enabling instant access to medical records of personnel on operations worldwide.
The project will provide the ADF with the capability to capture health surveillance information and data on injury causation.
This information will assist the ADF to monitor the effectiveness of injury and illness prevention strategies. A reduction in the number of injuries across the ADF would result in significant savings.
The system will be deployed on larger ships and in field hospitals and will interchange information with a number of other Defence systems to reduce double keying of data.
As a result, the ADF has a more effective, better-trained and equipped force, available for a range of operations at short notice, and one that can be sustained on deployment over extended periods. It also provides for investment in longer-term capabilities that serve as an insurance against future challenges and uncertainties.