Yippee! A Win for the Common Sense!

On June 25, 2007 – just after the emergency intervention following the “Children and Sacred Report” release, I wrote an article entitled How Could e-Health Help in the Northern Territory.

When I wrote the article I e-mailed it to relevant people in the appropriate branch of the Department of Health and Ageing.

While not wanting to take credit for stating the ‘bloomin’ obvious’, it is wonderful to see something is actually happening.

The following article provides some detail.

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22274844-16123,00.html

Remote e-health plan unveiled

August 20, 2007

THE federal Government says a new internet-based health system for remote areas will ensure health issues identified in Aboriginal children are properly followed up.

At the Australian Health Summit in Sydney, Health Minister Tony Abbott announced an electronic health record initiative for remote indigenous towns.

An investment of $25 million over the next three years would see the Medicare records and health concerns of more Australians dealt with online, Mr Abbott said.

Better equipped GPs would be able to receive lab results and X-rays via the internet, as well as sending referrals and writing prescriptions online.

However, Mr Abbott admitted the government had not been moving quickly on this issue, because he had urged similar internet streamlining in his maiden speech as health minister in November 2003.

….. (see URL for full article)

It will be fascinating to see how the implementation is approached. We have all had a lot of time to consider the issues surrounding Shared Electronic Records and it would be good to see this present initiative carried out in the light of all the learning and experience in thinking about the issues is available.

I will be following this with the keenest interest indeed!

Well done to those who got the idea up with the Minister. I hope they read the older blog article carefully for some alerts and insights on what needs to be carefully considered, in my view, as a project of this type is begun.

I do not believe it will be at all easy to deliver this project promptly as is ideally required. DoHA seems to recognise this – given that the funding is to run over three years. A careful review of proven solutions from overseas that I mentioned previously is certainly warranted as rapid results are possible with those proven tools.

David.