Background
The GRHANITE™ programme is a core part of the Health Informatics Programme of the University of Melbourne, School of Rural Health.
This wider Health Informatics programme is focussed on furthering the health agendas of rural communities but in doing so, the GRHANITE™ technologies target issues relevant to the wider Australian Health System.
The GRHANITE™ technologies development programme commenced in mid-2006 under the auspices of the CONDUIT project (Collaborative Network and Data Using Information Technology) (LINK) led by Professor Siaw-Teng Liaw.
Through CONDUIT and the previous experience of Dr Douglas Boyle in related activities in the UK, it was clear that tools to enable record-linked research and related activities involving primary care (and other applications that require record linkage) are almost non-existent in Australia - a new tool was warranted.
An extensive analysis phase was undertaken to identify the nature of the barriers to such record-linked activities.
The GRHANITE™ development programme was then initiated based on this needs analysis following a traditional but extensive software requirements analysis and design phase.
After functional prototyping was completed in Q4 2007, the project moved to a disciplined Agile Software Development Methodology in collaboration with the Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing.
GRHANITE™ - the acronym
Many have asked where the acronym comes from!
In 2006 the School of Rural Health established a Rural Health Academic Network (RHAN).
This is a network to support regional activities with regard to service development, audit, research and education in North East Victoria.
Initially the scope of GRHANITE™ was limited to implementation across RHAN.
Being Scottish (and there being a lot of granite in Scotland) Dr Douglas Boyle adapted the word granite (signifying strength and durability) to incorporate RHAN – hence GRHANITE™.
Subsequently the scope of GRHANITE™ has grown and the acronym now stands for Generic Health Network Information Technology for the Enterprise. Dr Boyle takes full responsibility for the acronym!