23 - Frank & Lorraine Pyefinch, Best Practice Software

Frank & Lorraine Pyefinch of Best Practice Software are two iconic and down to earth players in the Australian Practice Management System game.   Dr Frank Pyefinch is not only founder of Best Practice, but also originally the founder of Medical Director - the number 1 and 2 practice management systems for Australian GPs today, and have been for many years.   As CEO of Best Practice, Frank brings with him a long and proud history working as a busy GP, and Lorraine as a registered nurse - so together they understand first hand the challenges and needs of the medical community when it comes to software and technology. Overview [02:07] Genie was first created because Frank doesn’t like Mac [02:45] The first PMS in Australia (Medical Director) was created by Frank because the poisons act changed in Australia allowing typed scripts, which included computer generated ones.  [06:38] The break-even point for MD back in the early 90s was 200 sites.  This seemed an ambitious goal at the time. Today Best Practice Software has over 4500 sites.   [06:49] The name “Medical Director” came from Lorraine looking through Job Classifieds in Aus Doc magazine, and liking the attributes of a ‘Medical Director’. [07:58] The original Medical Director logo was created by Lorraine with the kids etch-a-sketch in the back of the family car [08:30] The first copy of Medical Director was sold on it’s launch at the AMA’s annual computer day conference in 1992.   [09:00] In 1994/95 advertisements started to be inserted into the Medical Director software, which subsidised the program heavily. [09:30] In 1999 Medical Director was sold to Health Communication Network (HCN).  Frank and Lorraine went to HCN with the business. [10:30] Frank and Lorraine left HCN in 2003 as they were dissatisfied with the increasingly intrusive advertising being placed in MD to raise revenue.  They sat out their exclusion period in their contract, and during that time Frank went back to being a GP in Bundaberg while writing Best Practice. [12:00] There were no standards for medical software at that time.  If there were, it’s likely the product would never have been built.   [14:00] Frank and Lorraine have seen Medical Software evolve from a text mode dos interface, to a graphical user interface, to the introduction of tables and touch screens.  Now seeing a bigger emphasis on communication, and also now a shift to the cloud, which is driving the development of their Titanium product to be released next year.  [15:07] Frank still does some programming in Best Practice even today, because he enjoys it. [17:34] Some of the government brain waves aren’t clearly thought out, such as the PHN’s collecting data for the QI Pip. [18:55] The biggest cause of support issues for Best Practice are Medicare claims not reconciling due to the archaic nature of the Medicare adapter.  BP is hoping Medicare shift to web services before BP release Titanium so they don’t need to integrate with legacy technology in the cloud. [21:15] During the roll out of the then PCHR, now My Health Record, during the Royal Review, Frank and Lorraine provided the suggestion that Doctors should be remunerated for uploading summaries to My Health Record as it was additional admin work they were not being paid for. [26:51] The BP Partner Program has been launched in order to give partners more controlled access to the BP database so they don’t need to hack their way in, and only get access to what they need - protecting the partner, the patient, the practice and BP.  [31:10] Pathology requests in PMS systems is standardised as SNP and QML, two competitors came together in the early 90’s came to the PMS providers and standardised the format of the forms, which set a format for future pathology vendors.  This didn’t happen with radiology which is all over the place [33:30] The ADHA is making strides towards their goal of interoperability, for example with secure messaging, although is Secure Messaging the best wa