The practice software vendor says the move to an external, web-based CVD check form was due to intellectual property rules outside of its control.
GPs frustrated by an update to the CVD risk calculator on Best Practice software can direct their ire elsewhere, as the Australian Heart Foundation works toward a more user-friendly solution.
“The Heart Foundation has previously offered to provide the technical specification to Best Practice to help them integrate the new calculator directly into their software, but the offer was declined,” a Heart Foundation spokesman told The Medical Republic.
“We are continuing to work with the industry to provide further assistance to integrate the new calculator into general practice software, including through developing new application that will allow for the integration of the CVD risk calculator into all practice software by mid-2025.”
The latest update to Bp Premier, Orchid Sp2, removed access to the original CVD risk calculator, which was integrated into its system and could auto-populate patient details.
Now, the only option is to use an external web-based form linked to an updated calculator.
Because it is external, GPs have to manually enter in patient information.
It’s the type of frustrating administrative double-handling that tends to get right up the noses of GPs.
“Because there is little competition amongst our medical software providers, GPs are left with few choices … it’s totally blindsided us and there’s been no warning,” RACGP president Dr Nicole Higgins told NewsGP.
“We want to reduce the red tape for GPs, reduce admin time and prevent burnout but this is just incongruous.”
But anger at the software company may be misplaced, at least according to Best Practice commercial and partnerships manager Jessica White.
For a start, the old calculator no longer matched up with industry standards.
“The original CVD risk calculator was providing different results to the new CVD risk calculator and had … been deemed no longer clinically acceptable,” she told The Medical Republic.
But the intellectual property laws attached to the Australian Heart Foundation’s updated CVD calculator prevented them from embedding it in Bp Premier, she said; for the original calculator, they had been provided with the algorithm it ran off.
“Best Practice Software was not provided permission to embed the tool within Bp Premier, to improve user experiences, due to IP constraints from the owner of the tool,” Ms White said.
“Best Practice Software was instructed to provide our customers with an external link to the web-based tool.
“Best Practice Software has been advised that the Australian Heart Foundation is working towards transitioning the calculator to a Smart FHIR Form, which will enable read and write functionality within our software, providing an improved experience for our users.”
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It’s not clear how this squares with the heart foundation’s assertion that it had offered assistance to the software vendor.
Ms White acknowledged that the new workflow was not ideal.
“Best Practice Software is a proud advocate of optimising the user experience on behalf of our users with all external third parties we work with,” she said.
“However, there are occasions where changes are required within our product, that we do not consider to be the optimal user experience for clinicians.
“Best Practice provided feedback to the Australian Heart Foundation following the release of the web-based CVD Risk Calculator.”
Rival software vendor MedicalDirector advised TMR that users were able to access the Australian CVD risk calculator online.
If a decision were made to mandate a single calculator, a spokesman said, it would be incorporated into MedicalDirector’s release roadmap.
This story was updated with new information from the Australian Heart Foundation.
