The paper developed by the Australian Health Information Council to brief Health Ministers on eHealth late last year – before the change of Government - is now available on line.
Visit:
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/eHealth
I may provide some comments after a review.
A new AHIC Communiqué is also available for March, 2008
Enjoy.
David.
12 comments:
This was the document referred to in the RFT for the National E-Health strategy. It was in fact a key document that led to the tender. Back in February it was secret squirell stuff and the tender respondents had to sign confidentiality agreements to get it. yet when you read it its pretty basic self evident stuff.
No idea why it took 6 months to get into the public arena.
From the Aardvaak
This AHIC document is well worth a careful read. It's a good start.
My first question after reading it was WHY? WHY? WHY HAS IT TAKEN SO SO LONG TO RELEASE 6 MONTHS!! 4 Oct till 17 Mar - surely not the elections and change of government !
My second question from point 7.3 is "what is the likelihood that NEHTA will accept the AHIC's belief that the most sensible organisational structure would include NEHTA as part of the implementation funtion / body. This suggests that NEHTA (including its management and Board) should be subsumed!! Ahh - politics - you've done it again.
The SEHR appears 40 times. The EHR appears once. The PEHR never rates a mention.
How does this fit with NEHTA's 'new world' vision?
Incredible. Have a look at page 45 “Simple set of 10 rules for a 21st Century healthcare system” …….
Rule 7:
Current Approach - Secrecy is necessary
New Rule - Transparency is necessary
There is nothing in the document to justify the signing of confidentiality agreements. So much for Rule 7.
The patient is mentioned 69 times and the consumer is mentioned 8 times, whilst the clinician is only mentioned 5 times. It might be fair to deduce this is probably indicative of changing attitudes because the document is more patient-centric than consumer or clinician-centric. Or is that drawing too long a bow?
Benefits realisation is promoted heavily by bureaucrats - it gives them a reason for being and makes them feel that what they are doing can be justified if things go wrong further down the track.
Bureaucrats take careful note of the AHIC’s main message. Paste it on the back of your toilet door and on your bathroom mirror.
..... "AHIC’s main message to AHMAC is that the ceaseless debate about benefits realisation and economic value of eHealth is a distracting and mostly futile exercise. The fact is that eHealth will not save money for Treasuries."
How very true - it is a distracting and mostly futile exercise.
Too long a bow methinks particularly as carer-centric is only mentioned once, whilst self-management and self-care are only mentioned 4 times. This is significant because PEHR doesn’t rate a mention.
Put this in the context of the following which can be found in the AHIC’s proposition in section 4.3 and it becomes even more surprising that the PEHR doesn’t rate a mention.
“Health policy development in Australia targets these issues and seeks to implement appropriate models of care. These usually involve coordinated, multidisciplinary primary (and sometimes secondary) health services in the community, often partnered with non government organisations. They aim to be consumer and carer-centric and encourage and support people to self-manage.”
..... "AHIC’s main message to AHMAC is that the ceaseless debate about benefits realisation and economic value of eHealth is a distracting and mostly futile exercise. The fact is that eHealth will not save money for Treasuries."
Can I say there are many who think that statement shows how out of touch AHIC was. It has since been wound up with no successor yet named!
David
Help.
It's bit of a worry when the AHIC has been wound up and the document they produced is used to develop a National E-Health strategy, if, as you claim, the AHIC is 'out of touch'.
What are we to do?
That's easy.
Just make sure who ever is selected to do the job knows this blog community exists and with organisations like ACHI and HISA needs to be consulted early and often about what they are planning!
David.
The AHIC does seem to be out of touch. How can some of the people on the Committee have allowed their names to be associated with such a basic document? It seems to be a repeat of the same old story once again - it's almost as if this committee said let's go back 10 years and start again.
In your blog dated 5 Jan 2007 you said ....... Australia has done planning exercises that lack real depth a couple of times in the last decade and we find ourselves where we are.....
It seems nothing has changed. Those with years of practical grass roots experience would find this document next to useless. Let's hope someone tells Fran Thorn and let's hope she listens.
What disturbs me most is the lack of reference to the multiple documents and conclusions of the last nine years relating to HealthConnect. It is as if none of it happened!
What did Health and Ageing advise the previous minister in late 2004 when HealthConnect was put to bed, other than that it would cost many billions of dollars to implement?
Was it all totally useless, or will we be treading the same boards again?
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