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."

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Parliament Publishes a Digest on the Health Identifiers Bill.

The following seems to have been developed before and published on the 24th February, 2010.

It can be reviewed from this link.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Library/pubs/bd/2009-10/10bd116.pdf

This is a very useful summary of discussions to the date of release. Well worth a download!

Sadly there does not seem to be any discussion of the risks poor implementation by Medicare and NEHTA poses to the overall direction and the recent revelations regarding the behaviour of Medicare Australia were not of course discussed.

See here for all that.

http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2010/03/would-you-trust-these-people-to-manage.html

We are having an exciting time indeed!

David.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes it is a very comprehensive appraisal of all the history, reports, concerns and issues leading up to the present day. Marvellous summary. There are still a lot of unresolved issues of serious concern.

Anonymous said...

Note Pages 9 - 16 “At the time of writing, the Bill has not been referred to a committee. Position of significant interest groups/press commentary and political party comment” is provided under the heading: Committee considerations -

Anonymous said...

From what I have read here I can’t help wondering whether NEHTAs “clinical lead and former Australian Medical Association President, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal” ……. is representing the situation correctly when he says:

……. “There is also a very strict audit trail so that any individual can know that someone has accessed their record in the system which is an additional layer of security”

A strict audit trail is fundamental to the entire concept of privacy, confidentiality, protection. Based on what I have just read in the earlier pages I have a feeling that Dr Haikerwal’s statement is not correct. I may be wrong.

Can someone with more knowledge throw some light on this please?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for pointing to this most informative summary. A great deal of progress has been made to resolve a very complex issue. Sadly however, there are still far too many issues of concern regarding design, planning, and confidentiality around the use of these Health Identifiers which must be resolved absolutely before the Bill is passed.

The work done will not be wasted if concerted action is taken now to address the major shortcomings prior to representing the Bill again in, say, 12 months time.

Anonymous said...

. “There is also a very strict audit trail so that ...."

What evidence is there that there is a very strict audit trail?

Anonymous said...

Wednesday, March 03, 2010 8:21:00 AM said "Hopefully the Senate Committee will appreciate how important it is for the nation to get this right."

There should be no argument about that from anyone - least of all NEHTA and Medicare Australia. Your correspondent makes a valid point that "the only protective barrier available to the people (that's us the punters, the patients, the entire Australian community which includes politicians and bureaucrats) is to block the Bill from being passed in the Senate until the planners and the bureaucrats have resolved all the major issues. The Senate's role is to represent and protect the interests of the majority of the people. Because some many problems are still buring brightly the Bill should be rejected. As that old warhorse Don Chip said - his role as a Senator was to kep the bastards honest. Hear, hear.