Ruth Barnes talks to the Irish Independent about Vitro Software's experience in Africa and providing medical records software to the fast-growing private health sector in Kenya.

Calvary, a Catholic non-profit operator of 15 public and private hospitals, 15 retirement and aged-care facilities and 22 community care centres, has been rolling out its Vitro digital records and patient chart system following a successful trial last year at its 60-bed Bethlehem hospital in Melbourne. Belinda Mcrae, the nurse unit manager on the St Teresa's ward at Bethlehem, says "We were the pilot of MedChart, the online medication chart It has made a huge difference for being able to read medication orders and keeping track of doses. The reduction in incidence of missed medication is amazing," she says. "From a workflow point of view, being able to access the same record at the same time [as other staff] is huge... I don't think we could go back." It only takes about 10 minutes to teach new staff to use the system, and Mcrae says the Vitro record, which can digitally replicate the look and feel of paper, makes it easier to track shifts and pick up issues, such as missed or overdue medications.

Pulse IT, Australia's first and only eHealth and health IT magazine has published their 2015 eHealth year in review. An upstart in Irish firm Slainte Healthcare made some headway in 2015 with a happy customer in Calvary Health Care Bethlehem for its Vitro electronic patient chart. Vitro is also being used at Bendigo Health for its hybrid approach to implementing a digital medical record (DMR).