IT Management

Do you have a plan in place when it comes to your practice's IT? Take a strategic approach to your IT planning to make sure you get the most out of your investment.


Choosing software

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It's often hard to know how and where to start when you need to choose and purchase software. This guide outlines a process to refine your requirements and compare products.

Having a plan to improve your practice’s information technology can help you fix what’s broken, do a better job of helping clients, and give you a bit more certainty about where you’re headed in the future.

IT is just a tool to help you do better what you’re doing now, and figuring out how to use it better doesn’t have to be overwhelming or confusing. Investing some time now could save you a lot of effort and money over the long-term.

So, you're looking at investing in a new IT system? It could be your server, patient management system or another new e-health system. It's important that you take into consideration all the costs that may not be obvious at the start. To help you, we have a template you can use as a starting point for creating a budget.

ICT planning requires the establishment of appropriate governance arrangements to ensure the application, management and review of the pratice's ICT Plan are consistent with the goals and objectives of the practice.

The creation of an ICT Steering Committee or similar governance mechanism can assist practices to comply with this principle. The governance mechanism should consider the following.

Practice IT

Your practice's technology is an important part of how you operate. Making sure you have the right information technology in place and a plan on how it's used is important.


Remote Access allows business owners and their staff to have the flexibility to decide when and where they perform their work tasks. Being connected using the right technology, individuals can potentially work from any location where an internet connection is available. The key component of having a connected business is secure remote access, which means communicating from external devices to the business systems.

Maintenance is an ongoing task and is important to the daily operation of your IT environment. Although each and every environment is different, a sound server maintenance plan might include these simple steps. Download our checklist to help get you started.

Digital Health

Using technology as part of your practice's services can give you the opportunity to care for patients in new ways. Find out how you can use digital health as part of your practice.


ePrescribing

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General Practice
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Pharmacy
Learn how to do ePrescribing (electronic prescribing) and the benefits to an electronic workflow
What is an Event Summary? How do you upload one? When you do upload it? All these questions and more are answered in this article.
This article has an overview of the Healthcare Identifiers Service and the three types of numbers it comprises. It also has information and instructions for an organisation to set up its own Healthcare Identifier/s.
What is My Health Record? This article has a brief overview of My Health Record and its origins. It also has links to articles that explain how to register and how to use it.

Online Presence

Being online is increasingly important for sharing information and being found. Learn about getting started with your website, social media and improving your presence online.


If you have searched for the name of your practice, you may have found that it already exists online – even without you doing anything.

This may happen for a number of reasons. For example, business directories may list you on their site based on public information, social media users sometimes create pages for locations they visit so they can ‘check-in’ and some social networks even recommend their users create pages for businesses they may not already have.

When it comes to your practice’s online presence, your website should be your foundation. Websites are one of the main ways that you can maintain your online presence and how people will discover you online. It’s the place online where you can control what is published, how it looks and what features it has.

Using a website, you will be able to provide better communications with your patients, promote your services in your local area and even provide new services online.

When taking your practice online, it’s important that you have a plan. Taking some time at the start to map out your efforts will help you know what you’re trying to achieve, provide enough to maintain your presence and measure its effectiveness.

The internet is quickly replacing the traditional directory book (e.g. Yellow Pages) for many people. When they’re looking for a doctor, people may use the internet in different ways to find the information they need. There are search engines such as Google and Bing, social networks such as Facebook and online directories such as Yelp and TrueLocal.

Want to get noticed online? Paying for online advertising can help you cut through all the "noise" on the internet. The great thing about online advertising is that it can be more targeted to a specific audience. This means you’ll be able reach the right people easier. 

How do you know if the time you’re spending on your online presence is worth it? Thankfully, there are ways to track and measure the value of your online presence. Most major social networks provide analytics and statistics for businesses. For your website, Google Analytics is a free and powerful tool for measuring the performance of your website.

Staff Skills

Your practice's technology is an important part of how you operate. Making sure you have the right information technology in place and a plan on how it's used is important.


While external training resources can be a cost-effective way to train your staff, there may be times when you want to develop your own material. In some cases you may need to train your staff on topics specific to your practice or need to track how staff are completing training.

Some of the benefits of running your own customised training include:

Security & Risk Management

How secure is your IT? Are you prepared for a disaster? Take steps to protect yourself an your practice from security risks.


How well do you handle private information in your practice? Learn about the Australian Privacy Principles and how you can use these guidelines to improve your practice's use of private information.
Rate your current level of computer and information security to generate an action plan and results, by completing the CISS checklist available on RACGP website