Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

NEHTA Fantasises About the Contribution of Outgoing CEO.

This just appeared on the NEHTA RSS feed.

Tributes to outgoing CEO Dr Ian Reinecke

Industry leaders from around the world have paid tribute to the outstanding contribution of Dr Reinecke to the development of e-health in Australia during his nearly four year tenure leading Australia’s National E-Health Transition Authority.

Richard Granger, former Chief Executive, NHS Connecting for Health has said:

“Ian has achieved much in the past three and a half years. There is now a clear vision for a national and state system of e-health infrastructure in Australia, an appropriately skilled central team in place and a timetable for implementation. His job has been a difficult one and it would only be by walking in his shoes that others might fully understand how it has required Ian’s intellect and leadership to deliver such progress.”

David J. Brailer, MD, PhD, Chairman, Health Evolution Partners, former US National Coordinator for Health Information Technology has said:

“Ian Reinecke was asked by the citizens of Australia to lead their health care system into the digital era. Ian and his counterparts in other countries - myself included - wanted to ensure that health care was safe, sustainable and responsive to patients. He challenged clinicians, payers, regulators and even patients to leave behind an old generation of customs and practices and to join health care's information revolution. Ian is a pioneer who fought to improve the Australia's health with the information tools."

John Glass, Director Chik Services Pty Ltd has said:

“This morning Dr Ian Reinecke announced his resignation as CEO of the National E-Health Transition Authority. CHIK has had the privilege of working with Dr. Reinecke since he assumed the CEO role some three and a half years ago. Since this time, Ian has been responsible for driving NEHTA’s considerable achievements in setting the foundations for Australian national and state e-health infrastructure.

“Starting with no more than a serviced desk and a mobile phone he has assembled a competent team that has taken the cause of an Australia-wide shared electronic health record forward. In spite of the incredibly complex environment involving health systems of nine separate jurisdictions, much has been achieved. Yet there is much more to do.

“Dr. Reinecke’s intellect, charm and firm but gentle style will be a hard act to follow. He is a pioneer in the true sense of the word.”

Professor Martin Severs FRCP, FFPHM, OBE; Chairman International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation Management Board has said:

“Ian Reinecke was instrumental in ensuring the International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation was created and was focussed on supporting the global citizen's health care.He was steadfast in his support for a sustainable, open, transparent governance structure that enabled the production of international releases for interoperability and national flexibility to meet local needs. Both on an organisational and personal basis he will be missed but gratitude for his guidance and input will be long lasting.”

----- End Release

Can I say I think this is just pathetic and in no way reflects the view of the e-Health Community in Australia. A clear negative view was certainly reflected in the spike in usage after the announcement and all the comments left celebrating his departure. To be sure there were some useful achievements, but they hardly balanced the awful problems seen in other areas of NEHTA’s performance.

These quoted comments all come from people who were not here to experience the poverty of leadership, lack of transparency and engagement we all saw or are locals who had a lot to gain by not seeing any of the obvious problems and issues.

While not wanting to speak ill of the recently departed this sort of attempt to re-write history can’t be allowed to go unchallenged and un-remarked.

Bah humbug!

David.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I always said he was 'Good' (two 'o's)
............. any one who can engineer their own press release and references like these has to be.

Anonymous said...

Not surprising. It's reasonable to assume he got the spinning machine to do an exit story. 1. position the organisation for the rough road ahead 2. seek sound bites from credible referees to add some spit and polish 3. Use ‘international referees'. Don’t mention that these counterparts or referees also left similar positions quite recently. They have done the polishing bit admirably. It's very good for the ego.

Anonymous said...

True to type - right to the end.

Anonymous said...

Fantasises seems to be the operative word.

Anonymous said...

I think ‘braggadocio’ is the word that best describes it.

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/braggadocio

Anonymous said...

Look at the bright side, perhaps they put a sign on the building “UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT” that might do it.
If only management would stay “out of the kitchen” and let the workers do the work, NEHTA might actually work.

Anonymous said...

Biggest problem with NEHTA is all the "experts" who think it should be done their way...and NEHTA is busy flipping and flopping to try and appease some of them and ends up achieving very little. The "experts" are then happy to start shooting the messenger....I wonder how some of them would go if they became CEO??

Anonymous said...

There always will be lots of experts who think it should be done their way - more so with very large complex projects like NEHTA has been trying to undertake. NEHTA has been busy flipping and flopping because it doesn’t seem to have been working to any sort of public strategic plan. In fact it seems there has been no strategic plan otherwise why would there be a tender out now to develop one? If there is no map and there is no compass you will either get lost, fall of the edge of the earth, or both.

Appeasing the critics is a futile debilitating exercise. That tends to happen most if the project is so large its definition becomes blurred and people lose confidence. Big projects can run in parallel with small projects giving some incremental achievements on the pathway to the bigger more distant goal. Then you may have fewer critics, more engagement with industry, and a more cooperative environment in which to work. But communication must be TWO-WAY.