Coordinating care across multiple clinicians has long been one of healthcare’s biggest operational challenges. From admission through to discharge, patient information is often captured across multiple forms, systems and teams, creating duplication, limiting visibility and increasing the risk of communication gaps.
To address this, Australian health technology provider CareRight has launched its new Care Encounter Manager, a capability designed to bring the entire patient journey into one connected, appointment-linked workflow.
Bringing the patient journey together
In many healthcare settings, a single patient encounter involves multiple clinicians contributing information at different stages of care.
Take a day hospital, for example. A patient’s journey may include pre-admission, admission, pre-operative assessment, anaesthesia, theatre, recovery and discharge. Traditionally, documentation from each stage may sit across separate systems or paper forms, making it difficult for clinicians to maintain a complete, real-time picture of the patient’s progress.
CareRight says its Care Encounter Manager brings these stages together within a single evolving patient record that authorised members of the multidisciplinary team can access and update throughout the encounter.
One record, shared across the care team
Rather than switching between multiple systems, clinicians document care within one connected encounter record.
According to CareRight, this provides:
- one connected patient encounter
- one shared patient record
- one source of truth across the multidisciplinary team.
Doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and administrative staff all contribute to the same record as care progresses, supporting greater visibility while reducing duplicate documentation and improving clinical handovers.
Built around existing clinical workflows
Rather than requiring organisations to adopt rigid processes, the Care Encounter Manager has been designed to support existing models of care.
Healthcare organisations can configure encounter workflows to align with their own clinical and operational practices, while clinicians access assessments, forms and documentation relevant to each stage of care. Information already captured remains available throughout the encounter, enabling progressive documentation rather than repeated data entry.
Supporting more connected care
CareRight says the capability is intended to help healthcare providers:
- reduce administrative duplication
- improve patient safety through real-time visibility
- strengthen multidisciplinary collaboration
- standardise clinical workflows
- deliver a more connected patient experience.
The platform is aimed at organisations managing complex patient journeys, including day hospitals, procedural clinics and multidisciplinary specialist services.
Industry perspective
Tim Macdonald, Director at CareRight, said the technology was developed to better reflect how care is delivered in practice.
“Healthcare is delivered through encounters, not isolated forms or disconnected systems,” Macdonald said.
“The Care Encounter Manager gives providers a practical way to manage every stage of the patient encounter within one connected workflow. It improves visibility, strengthens collaboration and aligns the technology with how care is actually delivered.”
Why it matters
As healthcare providers continue to face workforce shortages, increasing patient demand and growing administrative complexity, digital tools that improve coordination across multidisciplinary teams are becoming increasingly important.
Solutions that reduce duplication while improving clinical visibility have the potential to support safer handovers, more efficient workflows and a better experience for both clinicians and patients.
From “neurospicy” to HealthTok: reframing the healthcare conversation for Gen Z