The Royal Women’s Hospital’s Director of Informatics, Sofie Karamzalis, has been recognised nationally for her leadership in digital health.
At a special ceremony held last night, Sofie was one of 25 women leaders from across Australia to be recognised at the 2022 Brilliant Women in Digital Health Awards.
The awards celebrate women in health and aged care in Australia for their achievements in digital innovation and leadership.
Sofie was recognised for her role in leading the Women’s implementation of a major digital change project, the Parkville electronic medical record (EMR) system, transforming the way the Women’s operates and collaborates with its health service partners and improving health outcomes for the women and babies.
As Director of EMR, Sofie worked closely with the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and the Royal Children’s Hospital, as well as the Women’s EMR team and clinicians to successfully deliver the implementation of EPIC and fundamentally transform patient systems, care and outcomes. The rollout included the implementation of EPIC’s maternity module, Stork, at the Women’s which had not previously been used in Australia.
“It’s wonderful to see Sofie’s leadership celebrated at this national event,” says George Cozaris, Chair, of the Parkville Precinct Technology Advisory Committee and Chief Information Officer at the Royal Women’s Hospital and Melbourne Health.
“Sofie is an experienced and passionate digital health leader. She embodies our hospital’s values of courage, passion, discovery and respect as demonstrated in her career-long commitment to harnessing technology and information to improve the quality and safety of healthcare.”
Sofie said the award was a reflection of the achievements of the EMR team and the whole organisation.
“I’m really proud of our organisation because it was a huge change – before this, all our patient records, actually all our records, were on paper. But the Women’s staff stood up to the challenge and we’ve all been able to reap the benefits,” she says.
“Since we’ve launched the EMR, we’ve been able to engage our patients more in their care and decision-making, this helps to improve workflows for staff and improve the overall safety and quality of our care.”