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."

Monday, January 26, 2015

Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 26th January, 2015.

Here are a few I have come across the last week or so.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and a few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.

General Comment

The holidays are about the end and things will start to return to normal next week. Soon after that Parliament will come back and the bun-fight can resart.
Interesting that Mr Turnbull is pushing for a ‘single digital identity’ for Australians - I wonder just exactly he means by that - thinking IHI etc. Time will tell I guess.
Clearly Microsoft's Window 10 is going to have some considerable impact when it appears later in the year.
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Tony Abbott promotes Malcolm Turnbull to take charge of e-government

Date January 23, 2015 - 3:29PM

James Massola

Political correspondent

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has bolstered Malcolm Turnbull's ministerial duties, handing him greater responsibility for e-government in a push to expand the use of a single digital identity for Australians.
Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott on Friday announced the creation of a new Digital Transformation Office, made up of developers, designers, researchers and content makers.  It will work like a start-up and look to expand the use of the MyGov site across federal, state and local governments and potentially deliver big savings for the budget bottom line.
The establishment of the new digital office is designed to resolve the messy division of responsibilities between several departments, including Finance and Mr Turnbull's Communications Department, for e-government services.
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The full story...

E-health helping young people in distress

Lexi Metherell reported this story on Wednesday, January 21, 2015 08:13:33
ASHLEY HALL: As the Federal Government contemplates reforming the mental health sector, experts in the field are urging it to invest more in e-mental health services. They say the use of technology to help people with mental health issues is not only cheap, but it's effective as well.
Lexi Metherell has taken a look at a pioneering online service which began in Australia.
LEXI METHERELL: Sophie Sauerman was in high school when her life turned upside down as her sister developed an eating disorder.
SOPHIE SAUERMAN: I found myself getting really frustrated because I just couldn't understand why she just wouldn't eat food. I was like, it's so simple, you know, just eat food. It's not a big deal.
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Health advocates call on Federal Government to utilise technology to fight mental illness saying digital services are 'vastly underused'

By Lexi Metherell
January 21, 2015, 4:00 pm
Mental health advocates are urging the Federal Government to make better use of technology-based mental health services, saying they are cheap, effective, but vastly underused.
The Federal Government is considering reforms to the sector and is soon expected to deliver its response to the National Mental Health Commission's review of programs and services.
Mental health professionals have called for e-mental health services to be made a core part of the system.
The Black Dog Institute estimates that while e-mental health services could benefit 600,000 Australians, just 30,000 use them.
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eHealth Workshop Series

The NTML is pleased to announce the roll-out of a series of eHealth workshops hosted in Darwin.
Delivered both face-to-face and online, the six free workshops provide an overview of national eHealth systems, as well as cover in detail all of the phases of implementing the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) system, including the importance and value of quality clinical records in everyday practice.
The face-to-face workshops are designed to offer practical demonstrations and training using the PCEHR and the PEN Computer Systems Clinical Audit Tool (CAT) in each relevent workshop. There will also be opportunities to engage one-on-one with the eHealth team should there be any specific support required during or after the workshops.
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IT shops grapple with new healthcare codes for hurled turtles, fiery water skis

The OCD-10 medical coding system triples the number of codes hospitals and doctors use for billing and describing diagnoses and treatments
While much of the media's focus of late has been on electronic medical records (EMRs), what is proving to be a more daunting task is a new medical coding system affecting healthcare provider and insurance backend systems.
ICD-10, which represents the 10th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), will be used for classifying diagnoses and medical procedures.
The codes will dictate how the more than $2.8 trillion that Americans spend each year on medical care is paid out.
The new coding system is so complex that the mandate requiring it has been delayed twice. Its current deadline is Oct. 1, and there are industry rumblings that it may be delayed again.

HTSDO Conference Report October 2014

Created on Friday, 23 January 2015
The IHTSDO Conference Report October 2014 Meeting has been published.
The International Health Terminology Standards Development Organisation (IHTSDO) Business Meeting Report provides summary information on the international activities and areas of work as discussed at the IHTSDO October 2014 Business Meeting held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The report includes an update from the Content, Implementation & Education, Quality Assurance, and Technical Committees, as well as the General Assembly and Member Forum.
Download IHTSDO Conference Report October 2014 PDF (145.41 KB)
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CDA Validator v2.1 Available for Download

Created on Friday, 23 January 2015
This release includes an updated version of the CDA Validator which supports the PCEHR R5 documents Pathology Report and Diagnostic Imaging Report as well as providing the latest terminology databases.
The following new features and improvements have been introduced in version 2.1 of the CDA Validator:
  • Terminology code validation now supports AMT version 3.
  • Users can import AMT versions 2 and 3, SNOMED CT-AU and PBS clinical terminology codes.
  • More types of CDA documents can be validated.
  • CDA documents and CDA packages to be validated can be selected using ‘drag and drop’ onto the CDA Validator user interface.
  • Various usability improvements have been made.
Download the releases below:
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Australia's New Hospital Opens with Success

Summary:Fiona Stanley Hospital of Perth, Australia is projected to lead in health research and education. The building, which opened successfully at the end of 2014, was staffed in part by Serco Group using SAP SuccessFactors.
By Christine Donato for ÜberTech | January 19, 2015 -- 18:55 GMT (05:55 AEDT)
Perth, the fourth most populous city in Australia, is home to about 1.97 million people and serves as a cultural hub to the western coast of the continent.
The newly opened Fiona Stanley Hospital right outside of Perth in Western Australia is the third major hospital and the State Government's largest building project (to date) weighing in at $2 billion.
The facility contains 6300 rooms and 783 beds, 83% of which are single occupancy. The institution is committed to leading in research and education as well as delivering comprehensive clinical services. It includes an intensive rehabilitation service and mental health unit, and is also designed to have a healing and therapeutic effect on patients. There are five hectares of natural bush-land, landscaped parks, and internal gardens on campus.
Click here for a virtual tour of this incredible hospital:
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Mario lives: researchers inject artificial intelligence into Nintendo's leading man

Date January 20, 2015 - 1:00PM

Tim Biggs

Technology reporter / producer

Super Mario's newest adventure is not about saving a princess, conquering Bowser or even completing a round of golf. It's about being empowered to break free of the shackles of player control, become self-aware and sate his endless hunger for coins and monster-stomping.
The University of Tubingen in Germany has built a custom clone of the timeless video game which it uses to teach and converse with an artificial intelligence (AI) version of Mario, who in turn develops a personality and behaviour of his own.
The Mario Lives! project, created as an entry for the annual AI Video Competition, shows the chubby mushroom-lover coming to grips with the mortality of his enemies ("If I jump on Goomba, then it maybe dies", he says after being instructed to obliterate the enemy and report on what he learns) and analysing potential future scenarios to plot jumps without falling to his death.
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Microsoft goes for broke with Windows 10

Microsoft’s latest presentation on Windows 10 has been a revelation, not just for all the bells and whistles the software giant had on offer, but the fact that it has managed to turn a routine Windows software upgrade event into a media spectacle.
The HoloLens and its grand visions of holograms and augmented reality may have something to do with that, but there are also some signs of improvement across the board here from Microsoft.
The company has never been short of ambition but with Windows 10 its CEO Satya Nadella just might be hoping to exorcise the ghosts of everything Microsoft has done after Windows XP.
The software giant has had its struggles in reconciling its PC-centric side with the mobile world and Windows 10 is its best attempt yet to unify the two worlds, a world where the device type doesn’t matter, only Windows does.
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MUST SEE: Windows 10 free upgrade for Win 7 to 8.1 plus HOLOGRAMS

As predicted, Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users, but Microsoft’s holographic vision is far grander and very real.
At an event held in Microsoft’s visitor centre at its Redmond campus, Microsoft unveiled much more information about its next-generation not only of Windows, but of computing.
Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 users for one year, which will create a new ‘Windows as a Service’ to keep all Windows users updated and create one massive platform for developers.
It will deliver Cortana so you can talk to your computer, in a natural voice, saying ‘Hey Cortana’ and asking it to do various things for you.
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Enjoy!
David.

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