This was published by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners on Friday Feb, 19, 2010.
Message from the President
Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners welcomes the government’s latest step in implementing the e-health agenda, with the Minister for Health and Ageing, The Hon Nicola Roxon MP, presenting the Healthcare Identifiers Bill, 2010 to Parliament earlier this week. The proposed national Healthcare Identifiers Service aims to implement and maintain a national system for uniquely identifying health care providers and individuals and is planned to be available from July 2010. Medicare Australia will be the initial operator of the Healthcare Identifiers Service.
The vast majority of GPs are already using computers for a range of health services and the college recognises the importance of building a robust and future looking e-health system for Australia.
In order to create a safe, reliable and timely health care environment, it will be of utmost importance to quickly and adequately identify patients, while maintaining the flexibility to provide anonymous services to those who require them. If we get it right, the national Healthcare Identifiers Service is the cornerstone to making e-health work.
The correct implementation of individual and health care provider identifiers is important, as it will help lead to a safer and more efficient means of distributing medical records between health care providers such as general practitioners, hospitals, specialists and pharmacists. It also greatly reduces risk of avoidable error.
The passing of this legislation is paving the path for the future. Health care identifiers are an important building block to enable a national individual electronic health record system.
While the RACGP in principle supports the development and implementation of a national Healthcare Identifiers Service, there must be clarity regarding privacy safeguards, implementation issues and the application of health identifiers before progressing the system. To read the RACGP’s submission to the Department of Health and Ageing, ‘Exposure Draft Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010’ in detail, visit www.racgp.org.au/healthreform/35827.
The college’s work with the National E-Health Transition Authority
Quality and standards are the college’s core business. As such, the Standards for general practices are central to the work of the college, especially during a time of major health reform. The 4th edition of the Standards will include updating of the e-health standards, which is why the RACGP is working with the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) to develop the next edition of the Standards.
General practitioners are at the forefront of IT and e-health and we must continue to hold this position or risk having requirements imposed upon us. The Standards review process has recognised this, and the RACGP e-health Standards team will be proposing changes to the Standards. Our profession will drive any change to our Standards.
The work of NEHTA is crucial in health reform. To ensure that GPs can deliver the highest standard of care to their patients, the RACGP is ensuring that NEHTA is informed of what is reasonable, workable and useful for GPs when leading the progression of e-health in Australia. The 4th edition of the Standards for general practices will be launched at the RACGP Annual Conference – GP’10 – to be held from 6–9 October 2010 in Cairns. As announced at GP’09, the college is pleased that NEHTA have come on board as the major sponsor for GP’10; we hope to see you there.
This material comes directly from this link.
http://www.racgp.org.au/fridayfacts/36098
This enthusiastic support of all NEHTA is doing seems to have been purchased by an offer of sponsorship as best one can tell.
On 13 January, 2010, just a month ago, in a submission on the Identifiers from the College, we find the following.
4. Concluding comments
The College is supportive in principle of Unique Health Identifiers, and looks forward to continuing discussions with the Department of Health and Ageing regarding HIs prior to their progression and implementation.
In particular, the RACGP looks forward to receiving information providing clarity regarding:
• privacy safeguards and informed consent
• details of the communication strategy for the implementation process
• how implementation issues will be addressed, including the roll out of general practice software, installation, and funding
• application of HIs, including when to apply anonymous or pseudonymous IHIs.
See here:
http://www.racgp.org.au/reports/20100113RACGPSubmission_IHIBill2010.pdf
Submission - Page 4.
Why the adoption of a new and much more compliant view?
We suddenly find NEHTA sponsoring the College Annual Conference, and all the problems apparently identified so recently resolved and everything is now just wonderful. A little stall for NEHTA to exhibit maybe – major sponsorship smells a bit like a payoff to me! What an amazing outcome.
I for one would not want to be associated with a clinical College that can be so ‘flexible’ in its views. (Just so it is clear I hold Fellowships of two other major clinical colleges (Anaesthetics and Intensive Care) – so I know of what I speak).
One really wonders why such a sudden change of mind was possible from the published view just one month earlier.
The response to this blog – with 19 comments – rather suggests there is a level of disconnect between the College and its members and considerable concern with the College Standards setting approach.
See here:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2010/02/talk-about-being-out-of-touch-with.html
I am sure the reasons for all this will come out in due course – I hope it will not be too damaging to the College when it does.
I look forward to comments from College Members and Fellows on all this. Please note I am not suggesting anything like corruption, undue pressure or influence or the like. I just believe bodies such as the clinical colleges should be rather more circumspect in how they approach dealing with Government and pseudo government entities.
David.
7 comments:
If an organisation is prepared to pay for a sponsorship position its sponsorship should be accepted along with the money. Lead sponsorship is probably in the order of $30,000 to $50,000. NEHTA wishes to be major sponsor. Ok - let it. NEHTA's sponsorship is targeted at RACGP members not at the college.
That sounds reasonable. I have no difficulty with NEHTA being the major sponsor provided the sponsorship gives it value for money.
On that note however there is one overriding proviso and that is that NEHTA's sponsorship should in no way be allowed to corrupt the college. Your blog infers otherwise which, if it is the case, would be of great concern to all.
NEHTA's job is to define and deliver certain tasks and outcomes and in doing so convince the market to accept and adopt its deliverables.
The college would be naive and stupid in the extreme to carte blanche accept that NEHTA's deliverables will work and are appropriate for medical practices. The colleges role should be to provide NEHTA with guidance and advice as appropriate which NEHTA should take on board or reject as it sees appropriate.
That is where the line must be drawn.
I agree, I think that is what I said in the last paragraph.
"I just believe bodies such as the clinical colleges should be rather more circumspect in how they approach dealing with Government and pseudo government entities."
David.
David you are all in agreement on what is a very thorny issue. Do you think the college understands or is their thinking being distorted by politics and self interest? I doubt they have sufficient insight to enable them to understand? And if they don't understand can they be helped to understand?
From earlier comments it seems we all agree that NEHTA then has to go to the market, to the vendors and to the practices to get its policies and standards accepted and implemented. Under no circumstances should NEHTA expect the college to be its marketing and promotional arm. No way.
I too would like to add my twopenneth worth to this debate because as far as I can see there is one overriding principle to which everyone pays lip service, which no-one has mentioned, and which so often gets lost in the fog of confusion created by rivalry and competitive self interest, and political expediency. It is good governance.
Good corporate governance dictates that the college should ensure it is well distanced from any suggestion that it could be morphing into one of NEHTA’s many sales arms. If it doesn't do so it will very quickly become compromised at enormous cost to its credibility and at great cost to its membership.
The college needs to understand and accept that NEHTA is an unproven 'concept'. It is a very high risk venture. It is an organisation which, after 5 years, has not yet delivered anything of substance in healthIT, even though it has been permitted to expend over $100 million of taxpayers’ money with no accountability, no transparency and totally inadequate corporate governance.
And don't overlook the fact that for almost all its existence NEHTA has neglected paying any attention to primary care, instead focussing its attention of the hospitals which reflected the jurisdictions' main area of interest.
http://www.mygeneralpractice.com.au
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