Training underway for Canberra health workers in new digital health record

The ACT digital health record is set to go live in less than two months, which will collate paper and clinical records of patients held in more than 40 separate IT systems across the territory's public health system.

More than 14,000 workers are set to undergo training over the coming months with the first users, dubbed "super users" being the first off the blocks.

The 1600 super users are trained in the system before everybody else but they do receive the same training as every health care worker. These workers will support other workers as they undergo their training.

Canberra Health Services project officer NDIS support team Belinda Vandermeer said she volunteered to be a super user so she could support her colleagues when the system goes live on November 12.

"I've had four training [sessions] now and in each one of them I can see how they all connect in to the other one that I have already had so it is just building on it," she said.

"I'm getting more confident as it's going along, it's not going to be nearly as tricky as what every one thinks."

Ms Vandermeer said she currently has to deal with a number of systems and it will be helpful to have everything in the one place.

"In my job I could have three screens open a couple of different applications open on every single screen and I'm constantly flicking between all of them all the time and I'm having to constantly re-log back in," she said.

"With this that information is just going to be there for me on one page, it will just be amazing."

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Calvary Public Hospital speech pathologist Laura Curran, another super user, said most of the records she dealt with were paper based.

"I'm in the floor in the hospital and everything is still mostly paper based, so the ability to see information straight away, to type it in to see what other people are doing in real time is going to make a huge difference," she said.

There will be a mammoth effort to train all of the ACT's public health workers in the $150 million project. Authorities have had to use extra agency staff to backfill rosters so staff can take part in training during work hours.

Some elective surgeries have had to be transferred to the private system to enable staff to receive training.

Meanwhile, medical transcriptionists aired fears for their jobs this week as the new system will include an automated voice-to-text system.

Authorities say nobody will lose their job as a result of the change but people fear their job will change.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said this week clinicians would still have the option to use transcriptionists if they did not trust the new automated system.

But she said the future of the transcription roles would be considered early next year.

"In February, further conversations will be had about what is the need for transcription services into the future," Ms Stephen-Smith said.

"Canberra Health Services is having very detailed conversations with all of the staff that are involved in the transcription team to ensure they understand what these processes are going to look like and to reassure them how important they are to the organisation and their services will continue to have a role."

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