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."

Sunday, October 05, 2014

AusHealthIT Poll Number 238 – Results – 5th October, 2014.

Here are the results of the poll.

Do You Believe It Is About Time The Future Of The PCEHR Is Clarified?

Yes 65% (155)

Neutral 22% (52)

No 12% (29)

I Have No Idea 1% (2)

Total votes: 238

This is a pretty clear and enthusiastic outcome. Most are sick of Government festination and failure to clarify what is happening.

Again, many, many thanks to all those that voted!

David.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps there is NOTHING LEFT to clarify. Perhaps everything and everyone have evaporated or been transported off in Dr Who's Time Machine. NEHTA's CEO Peter Flemming has become invisible. He doesn't appear on NEHTA's web site, he doesn't present at any of the upcoming medical conferences, he doesn't appear in any media. Has he got nothing to say about the PCEHR? Has he got nothing to say about eHealth? Surely he has some good news about the future of eHealth and NEHTA! Why, even NEHTA's organizational structure doesn't even show on its web site. Is there an organisation behind NEHTA - if so why not show it?

Anonymous said...

Some pretty telling observations October 05, 2014 4:49 PM. From my perspective I think NEHTA is too disorganized at present to have an organisation chart. This in turn leads one to muse about The Department's eHealth Organization structure.

Anonymous said...

The focus will be on shaping the eHealth Strategy refresh and NEHTA transition to a new entity, the CEOS I am sure is happy to watch his management team tear each other apart as is probably just involved enough that they stay within the law. I am sure the NEHTA CEO now knows enough about what and who is wrong with eHealth in Australia. Out of chaos comes order.

Anonymous said...

Any CEO that’s happy to watch his management team tear each other apart is not a leader.

A CEO which has led NEHTA to this point clearly knows nothing about what and who is wrong with eHealth in Australia – objectivity is lost in the need for self preservation.

If the same CEO is involved in shaping an eHealth strategy refresh and transitioning NEHTA to a new entity then out of the chaos will come more chaos.

Dr David G More MB PhD said...

"Out of chaos comes order.".

What?

Without proper leadership, governance and management all you get is worse chaos! Evidence for much in the way of positive change is hard to come by recently.

David.

Anonymous said...

The suggestion the the NEHTA CEO "Now" knows whats wrong with eHealth in Australia is quite laughable. It would be the first time he understood anything about eHealth, and based on the record so far its not believable!

Government ham fisted interference in the eHealth sphere is what is wrong with eHealth. The solutions are out there but a bunch of managers have about as much chance of stumbling on it as a cyclone does of assembling a 747 as it hit a junk yard. Managerialism is no match for problems that require free thought and brainpower to solve. They have set back the industry years. I doubt they are smart enough to get that however. Some Austerity measure are needed, The entire eHealth department of DOA and NEHTA need to be shutdown in the interests of public safety.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous October 06, 2014 9:38 PM, I think your view is short sighted and a little shallow, the ehealth landscape is not a easy one by any measure, yes he has made a few questionable decisions and has not been helped by the dismantling of any useful set of architectures and let's not mention that through the infamous standards and specs plan the dagger in standards back was delivered, he has done a fair job IMHO but has been let down in some quarters by those entrusted to maintain the products and build a strong capability to support the next phase of work, I know I would be just a little disappointed if I was in his position.
On a brighter note we could had it over to you and all be home by Christmas

Anonymous said...

Another comment that demonstrates the lack of understanding. No "it" won't be finished by Christmas, in fact it will never be finished and it needs to be allowed to evolve and improve by putting in place building blocks that work together well.

The internet of 2014 is using the same basic standards that it used in the late 90's but the quality of implementation and compliance with those standards has improved to a level that we have rich internet applications. No government created "A system" but over time people improved implementations and realized that everyone gains from compliance with those standards. In many ways that was the room eHealth was on, but its been derailed by people with a limited understanding of technology who have tried to "fix" or "create" it, whatever "it" is. The intentions could well have been good, but ability and understanding of technology has been lacking and as failure has loomed the "fixers" have become nasty, paranoid and blocking of any other way. The road is long and winding but we need to head back out of the weeds and try and walk it.

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

Anonymous said:
"The internet of 2014 is using the same basic standards that it used in the late 90's but the quality of implementation and compliance with those standards has improved to a level that we have rich internet applications."

Your logic seems to be something like this:

The internet uses standards and has become a Good Thing, therefore eHealth should be based upon the same sort of standards.

There are two major problems with this bit of logic.

1. At the communications level the Internet sort of works. There are still many problems, mostly around authentication and security.

2. At the content level the Interenet leaves much to be desired. I received an email today from the FBI saying that I needed to send them $398 or I would be arrested and prosecuted as a terrorist. It's an obvious scam - the FBI doesn't use gmail.com being just one of many signs.

Internet standards were developed by the IETF - The Internet Engineering Task Force. They are engineering standards and are content free. eHealth standards are all about content and (hopefully) about how that content is used.

This is a much harder problem than communications engineering.

However, that aside, I agree with your statements that “…it’s been derailed by people with a limited understanding of technology who have tried to "fix" or "create" it, whatever "it" is”.

IMHO, eHealth has been seen as a technology problem, but the technology people working on it haven’t even been up to delivering a good technology solution.

Anonymous said...

I am not suggesting using internet standards for eHealth as such, but the fact that it has taken 20 years for those internet standard implementations to mature enough to be a credible platform for rich internet applications.

It is the rush to a new "standard" or the search for "The solution" which is silly. We actually have working eHealth in the pathology and radiology fields but that has taken a long time and you would expect it to. Rather than trying to invent the solution we need to consolidate what we have by improving the compliance and quality of the implementations and refining the existing standards. Its the idea that NEHTA can come up with "A Solution" that irks me. All they have come up with a big problem and are holding back any solutions because they are trying to solve something they don't understand. The UK has wasted billions, I suspect the USA has wasted most of their 20 Billion and we have wasted >$1 Billion but failure doesn't seem to result in any reevaluation of the methods. It will take a long time and the slow and steady path has been disrupted for the last 10 years because of the NEHTA equivalent of the ENRON "Smartest guys in the room"

Bernatrd Robertson-Dunn said...

"I am not suggesting using internet standards for eHealth as such ..."

I wasn't suggesting you were.

In fact I think we are in violent agreement except for one thing. I think it may actually take longer than 20 years. a) because it's harder and b) because the powers that control the purse strings don't realise that it's harder.