In a first for Aotearoa, patients are now engaging with their primary care providers using a fully standards-based digital solution at scale. Utilising the HL7 FHIR® International Patient Summary (IPS), endorsed by standards governing body HISO, Centrik® paves the way for healthcare service providers to implement interoperable and integrated solutions in New Zealand and abroad. 

Centrik, now available to consumers as the white label Better Health Outcomes app, is currently rolling out to patients at Better Health’s general practices. The rollout has seen an overwhelming response from patients, showing great demand for technology that makes accessing their healthcare data and services much easier.

Centrik has event driven integration with Medtech’s ALEX® (Application Layer EXchange) platform using FHIR, which means only the data that is required and consented for is accessed from the patient management system (PMS) by Centrik in real-time. The outcome is that, for the first time, New Zealand consumers can access on demand their International Patient Summary (IPS) – an international standard of medical data records adopted on a global scale as ISO 27269.

“Taking a standards-based approach to the development of Centrik was important to us from the start and we are really seeing the benefits of this now. We are using FHIR right across our stack, from our API layers, to data storage, right through to our UI libraries on web and mobile. This means new available endpoints from the PMS side can be rapidly turned into powerful features for our users. An example of this is the ALEX® API ‘Write to Inbox’ functionality, which went live in December, has enabled our prescription repeat feature which goes live with Better Health this month,” says Webtools Chief Executive, Harry Hawke.

Having Centrik in the market and used by consumers is only the tip of the iceberg. Adhering to FHIR standards makes this new breed of health tech interoperable – ready to improve the way health information is accessed and shared around the country and globally. Centrik supports the objectives of the Ministry of Health’s Hira programme, able to easily integrate with any health service provider that adheres to FHIR standards to share patient data quickly and securely.

Harry says, “FHIR standards and interoperability have long been touted as the answer to enabling a more integrated healthcare system. Huge credit to Geoffrey Sayer and the Medtech team for building ALEX® and enabling the sector to take a huge step in the right direction.”

Managing Director of Medtech Global, Geoffrey Sayer says, “Our objective when launching the ALEX® platform was to use a standards-based approach and provide resources to allow innovation. With the rollout of Centrik to practices and patients, we are now seeing this become reality. Using FHIR resources, Centrik has been deployed with minimal assistance from Medtech, which is the exact result we were looking to achieve.”

Centrik has been developed by Christchurch company Webtools. Learn more about Centrik here.