Karisma has now offered users assured and direct integration with Medicare Online for almost three years. The development of our flagship solution in line with Medicare Online's evolution has been a learning experience for all involved at Kestral. The changeover from Medclaims, the previous system, was enormous in terms of both programming requirements and the re-training of users.

As you upgrade to Karisma V2.0.9, you will notice a slight change within the Medicare Online requirements. Kestral has actively upgraded Karisma's in-built functionality to the very latest version of Medicare Online. The Karisma support staff at Kestral have taken the time to outline a set of Frequently Asked Questions on Karisma's new Medicare Online functionality.

Long-standing Kestral client, the eminent Healthscope group of facilities, consists of more than forty private hospitals throughout Australia and abroad in Asia. Healthscope includes a leading pathology arm with facilities around Australasia, Singapore and Malaysia and over 45 medical centre clinics and diagnostic imaging within major hospitals.

Healthscope has recently expanded its substantial services to Kingaroy X-ray Clinic in regional QLD - a private service outsourcing its reporting requirements to Healthscope's Allamanda and Brisbane Private hospitals.

Founded as a Bush Nursing Hospital in the 1930's and established as a network of facilities in 1995, the Peninsula Health Care Network now comprises two acute hospitals; four Aged Care, Rehabilitation, Palliative Care and Residential services; two mental health facilities and four community health services - all in various locations throughout Frankston, Rosebud, Seaford and Mornington, Victoria.

Peninsula Health is a recognised leader in the promotion and provision of high quality, innovative, coordinated and personalised health services. Kestral is pleased to announce that the Frankston Hospital site has gone live with Karisma.

The Kestral Knowledge Base (KBS) has now been released to the public and is accessible from the banner at the bottom of the website home page at www.kestral.com.au.

KBS is a central repository for information related to the company's products and processes. At present, the available content is for Karisma only; but as articles on other products are created, they will also be incorporated. PLS and RMS documentation is still available directly from the website.

A major release for Karisma will soon be available. Karisma v2.0.9 will include a number of new and enhanced features, providing users with an improved experience and organisations with more efficient workflow and additional technical capabilities.

 New innovations have been employed in the Dictation and Reporting modules to provide reporting Radiologists with the most workflow efficient tools yet. Along with an enhanced user interface, the screen now includes a configurable layout and at-a-glance viewing of WAV files.

World-renowned Kestral client, St Vincent's Hospital Sydney (SVHS) recently extended their existing Karisma installation to two additional work sites - the Nuclear Medicine Department in the public hospital and a work site in St Vincent’s Clinic.

 SVHS offers internationally celebrated services and expertise, best-in-class facilities and educational opportunities. Regarded as an innovator in clinical care, research, teaching and medical leadership, SVHS was founded on the principles of compassion, care and respect for all people - more than 150 years ago.

With the new year upon us, we would like to take the opportunity to wish a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our partners and clients and review the major milestones for the company this year.

Users have recently benefitted from a number of additions and enhancements to HL7Connect; Kestral’s full-featured HL7 messaging interface. HL7Connect enables communication between HL7-compliant applications; removing the need for applications to interface directly.

Kestral is pleased to announce that the second phase of our important Midlands project has been completed at Waikato District Health Board (Waikato DHB) and the facilities are now live.

Kestral implementation staff recently completed the installation of Karisma at Healthscope's brand new Imaging Diagnostics Australia site at Allamanda Private Hospital on the Gold Coast.

Kestral is pleased to announce that our own Grahame Grieve is the 2009 recipient of the HISA Don Walker Award for Effectiveness in recognition of his development work on common datatypes within the HL7, ISO and CEN communities. 

Kestral and Philips Healthcare have recently joined forces for the implementation of Karisma and iSite PACS into the Medical Imaging department of St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.

Kestral recently launched Karisma’s latest feature, the Business Report Studio, at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) conference in Adelaide. RANZCR, now in its 60th year, was created to enhance the knowledge of contemporaries in the fields of Radiology and Radiation Oncology.

Kestral is pleased to announce that we will be demonstrating Karisma’s brand new Business Report Studio at the upcoming RANZCR 59th Annual Scientific Meeting.

Karisma Go-Live was recently completed for startup radiology practice Coffs Coast Medical Imaging (CCMI) in NSW. Staff at CCMI worked with Kestral to implement an integrated Karisma-Inteleviewer system to operate throughout the facility.

Located in Midland, Western Australia, InSight Clinical Imaging is the latest practice to implement a Karisma system. Karisma training, implementation and configuration were carried out at the site by qualified Kestral staff.

For more than 20 years, rural communities on the southern coast of NSW have been provided with comprehensive imaging services via the outstanding experience and resources of South East Radiology.