September 2021 Edition
  • Pen CS Awards - Register to Attend, Thursday 16 September
  • New Updates to COVID-19 Vaccination CAT Reports - Coming soon
  • New COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker and Patient Eligibility Checker
  • Topbar New Minimum Technical Specifications
  • 'Nursing activation and engagement at point of care' with Matthias Merzenich
  • AIDH Digital Health Institute Summit
  • Pen CS Learning: Free Webinars
  • Release updates 
Pen CS Awards - Register to Attend
Celebrate the first-ever Pen CS Award Winners with us!
Nominations are in and the inaugural Pen CS Awards is ready to announce the Winners. HOPIN to the live stream to find out which General Practices and Aboriginal Medical Services will be crowned the title of Award Winner to celebrate their commitment to data-driven quality improvement.

Join us to celebrate the Winners of the 2021 Pen CS Awards.

Presenters include Macquarie Health CEO Dr Thomas Wenkart, Conservative Indigenous Activist and Politician Jacinta Pryce, AIDH Board Member Gillian Mason and Cardiologist Dr Ross Walker.

Date: Thursday 16 September 2021
Time: 6:00 - 7:00pm AEST
Venue: Hopin


Winners will be announced during the Award Ceremony and will receive a cash prize of $500 with their trophy.
Important Announcements
New Updates to COVID-19 Vaccination CAT Reports - Coming soon
Almost 21 million COVID-19 vaccinations have been administered across Australia.

Over half were delivered through primary care.

Pen CS has updated the new COVID-19 Vaccination CAT Reports to reflect the following vaccination names and categories in our reports, aligned with the new guidelines.

  • Pfizer will be updated to Pfizer (Comirnaty)
  • AstraZeneca will be updated to AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria)
  • NEW Category: Moderna (Spikevax)

These new updates will be available in late September.
New COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker and Patient Eligibility Checker - Now available
Pen CS is launching a new tool to help you track and manage the accelerating COVID-19 vaccine rollout for your practice or Aboriginal Medical Services.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker (COVID-19 Tracker) is designed to support healthcare providers to check patient eligibility and monitor the COVID-19 vaccine status of patients.

The COVID-19 Tracker, incorporated into the Disease Tracker App, shows the vaccine status for the patient in consultation and notifies the healthcare provider if they are eligible for Dose 1 or Dose 2 of the vaccine, based on information available in the patient record.

This new feature is now available for practices, with an active Topbar licence.

If you are interested in this App for your practice, please contact Gemma Buckle at [email protected] for your onboarding and to receive advice on the setup process.
NEW Topbar Minimum Technical Specifications
With the upcoming Topbar Version 2.15 release, practices are recommended to update, if they do not yet meet the new Minimum Technical Requirements, to ensure the best functionality and software security which Pen CS offers to their users.

  • Windows Server 2012 (64 bit)
  • SQL Server 2016
  • .netframework: 4.6

The expected release for Topbar Version 2.15 will be starting from mid-September 2021.

Check if your practice meets the Minimum Technical Requirements. If it does not, we recommend you update to meet the requirements to receive ongoing Topbar updates.

If you are experiencing any further issues or have any questions, please contact Pen CS Support.
Pen CS Events
'Nursing activation and engagement at point of care' with Matthias Merzenich
On 23 August 2021, Pen CS Clinical Quality Assurance Manager, Matthias Merzenich, presented on 'Nursing activation and engagement at point of care' in the Nursing Informatics International Congress 2021 Global Speaker Showcase.
AIDH Digital Health Institute Summit
The Digital Health Institute Summit which features leaders, strategists, innovators and expert practitioners in digital health from around the world has now been postponed to February 2022.

Our Managing Director, Edweana Wenkart, will be presenting on 'Novel on-demand data linkage for predictive analytics and patient to population health management'.

The Digital Health Institute Summit will now be held in Melbourne and online from Monday 21 - Tuesday 22 February 2022, with the virtual showcase being hosted from Thursday 3 - Friday 4 March 2022. 

Session Details:
Day 2, Session 15: Data Linkage and Exchange
Date: 22 February 2022
Time: 11:15am AEDT

Pen CS Learning: Free Webinars
Chronic Disease Management and Health Assessments with CAT
Learn how CAT can be used to identify patients eligible for health assessments and GPMP/TCA in your general practice.
Learning Outcomes:
  • How to identify patients at risk of chronic disease
  • How to identify patients eligible for 45-49, 75+ health assessments
  • How to find patients with at least one chronic condition and eligible for GPMP/TCA in CAT
  • Identify where to access resources to better utilise CAT for chronic disease management

For General Practitioners, Practice Nurses, Practice Managers, PHN Practice Support Team, and Practice Receptionist

Date: Thursday, 9th September
Time: 1-1:30pm AEST
CAT Plus and Cancer
Learn how CAT Plus can be used to efficiently recall and manage patients for cancer screening and reporting in your practice.
 
Learning Outcomes:
  • Be familiar with the available functionality around cancer screening in CAT Plus
  • Be shown examples for reports working with available filters in CAT
  • Creating greater health care autonomy – Recall patients not up-to-date with their cancer screening status using Recall CAT and CAT Plus Prompts​
  • Know where to get help and how to access resources to assist working with CAT Plus

For General Practitioners, Practice Nurses, Practice Managers, PHN Practice Support Team, and Practice Receptionist

Date: Tuesday, 21st September
Time: 1-1:30pm AEST
More training?
Watch more webinars here.
View CAT recipes here.
Pen CS Release Updates
CAT
  • Fixed issue where CAT picked ‘non-visit’ as a visit type
  • Added new medication
  • Added ‘COVID-19 At Risk’ report to ‘Daily CAT’
  • Fixed issue where low risk patient was incorrectly reported in CVD Risk graph
  • Fixed issue with CVD risk score for CVD Risk graph
  • Fixed issue for Zedmed practice where Pfizer was incorrectly reported
  • Fixed issue with CAT Prompts notification
  • Fixed issues with CHAT-GP – Memory study reports
Topbar
  • New feature added to collect analytics data and recording into ELK
  • Edits made to the user telecoms are now displayed in Topbar in the Provider Details Request.
  • Topbar now defaults to install SQL Express 2016.