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Family Care Medical Services completes a World Innovation with Ironbark Software...


Company Profile

Established over 30 years ago, Family Care Medical Services is Australia’s leading provider of after hours primary medical care servicing greater Brisbane, Ipswich, the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast, Northern Sydney, Western Sydney and the Hills District. Family Care provides access to General Practitioner care during the after hours period. This home visiting service allows patients that are housebound, residents of aged care facilities and those who are simply unable to get to a GP or Emergency Department, to access high quality medical care in the comfort and convenience of their own home during the after hours period.

Family Care also operate four after hours GP clinics in South-East Queensland and, with the assistance of the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, will be opening their first after hours GP clinic at Ryde in NSW in October 2008.

Business Issues

A client for 30 years, Ironbark Software was the first software package that Family Care Medical Services used to run their operation.

As the business has grown, Ironbark has grown with it; with the system becoming extremely sophisticated over the years; especially since upgrading from the COBOL version of Ironbark to C# (C Sharp).

Investing in the development of a customized ERP system was crucial to Family Care’s business.

Ironbark was able to provide tailored reporting mechanisms based on the latest software technologies as Family Care expanded from a state, to a multi-state service provider.

Upon making house calls, Doctors were hand writing patient reports and then bringing the report to Family Care’s office on a daily basis. The hand written patient report was placed on a template and manually transmitted by admin staff to the patient’s GP via fax.

This process was a time consuming procedure involving high administrative overhead and recurring travel to and from the office for Family Care’s Doctors. New legislation also meant that hand written patient reports were not an acceptable format.

As a result, Family Care identified the need for streamlining the transmission of patient reports.

The Solution

A world innovation, the EPR system allows for type written patient reports to be created and electronically transferred by Doctors in the field. The reports are then electronically transmitted to the patient’s day time General Practitioner.

Doctors create patient reports on their Toughbooks and transmit the report to Family Care’s system using the 3G HSDPA network.

Data submitted to their server is encrypted data technology and is a part of the Windows .NET platform which Ironbark runs on. High security levels are in place with various levels of authentication required before the server will accept the encrypted data. This allows for private and sensitive patient data to be exchanged without fear of third party interception.

Data is then decrypted and converted into the Ironbark system and stored for history and reporting purposes. Auto faxing is generated from Ironbark to the patient’s GP.

Another feature of the EPR system is the ability to attach drawings to a patient’s file. Doctors are able to provide a visual reference of a patient’s injuries/symptoms by selecting from one of many anatomical templates. These files are stored with the patient’s record in the Ironbark system.

Why Choose Ironbark?

Family Care have identified their reasons for choosing Ironbark as: 

• Ability to develop new software technologies in line with their business requirements
• Sophistication of the Ironbark system
• Ability of the Ironbark system to grow with their business 
• Adoption of hardware technologies to integrate with their business and with their Ironbark system
• Cost Effectiveness 
• Availability of support and services

The Benefits

Family Care has benefited from the implementation of this system by:


• Significant decrease in administrative overhead 
• Increased employee efficiency 
• Elimination of the manual processes for patient reporting 
• Accurate and secure data 
• Streamlined process
• Quick data exchange on the 3G network
• Compliant with legislative requirements
• Convenient for Doctors in the field with less travel to and from the office

What the Client Says

“We’ve built on incredibly sophisticated systems to allow all our Doctors to supply patient information in the field...”

“The Ironbark EPRS is a world innovation in data communications for our Doctors and our patients...”

Stuart Tait – Chief Executive Officer, Family Care Medical Services