Pictured: NWMPHN's Daniel Morris, Analytics and Insights Manager, and Brendon Wickham, Technical Development Lead

The financial year was a busy one for NWMPHN’s technical development director, Brendon Wickham and his team, resulting in several major reforms in the way the organisation gathers and safeguards information for itself, and on behalf of the state and federal government. 

Brendon’s software development team faced a big task in designing and implementing a new eReferral function for the national Medicare Mental Health Phone Service. 

“This was delivered on time, despite being a major technical project and its dependence on integration with a third party, which always increases complexity,” he said. 

For more about the project, see this annual report story. 

In the middle of the eReferral implementation, the Australian Government’s Department of Health, Disability and Ageing rebranded the Head to Health phone service to the Medicare Mental Health Phone Service. 

At first glance this might sound like a straightforward – albeit large – exercise, but behind the scenes it provided the opportunity to change branding processes and system structure. 

“In response, we rebranded our environment to Primary Mental Health Care Information Systems (PMHCIS),” said Brendon. 

“The central application we maintain was brought under that umbrella and dubbed the PMHCIS Intake Module. This puts us in a more flexible position for adding other modules and functionality over time, while keeping a generic branding. 

“The PMHCIS Intake Module displays customised branding as required, with most referrals set to display the Medicare Mental Health requirements.” 

The team also worked to build up NWMPHN’s reporting capabilities, particularly in relation to the Victorian Urgent Care Service program. 

“These updated reports are better structured, easier to navigate and simpler to understand,” said Brendon. “Feedback from other PHNs has been very positive.” 

NWMPHN’s data and reporting team found itself faced with a major technical challenge, brought about by changes made by Microsoft to its data analysis tool, Power BI. 

“All reporting was moved to a new Power BI environment, which was a significant project due to a number of key reports we deliver as part of our service to PHNs nationally, plus the Medicare Mental Health program, and, within Victoria, for the Urgent Care Clinic program,” explained Brendon. 

The success of the task did not go unnoticed. 

“Our experience led to us being asked by other PHNs for guidance on their own project to transition to a new environment,” he said.