Others Are Noticing the Australian E-Health Mess.

There is always the risk – when typing away in the ivory tower – that one can become a little out of touch. I have thus found it very re-assuring that increasingly other observers are noticing the mess we seem to be making of e-Health.

A couple of examples.

Ready, set… slow

Friday, 11 July 2008

What’s the hold-up on a national, linked electronic health system? Kathryn Eccles finds out.

BEING called to hospital at 2 am to assess a patient with chest pain is part of an average week for Dr Peter Rischbieth.

At his most recent early morning call-out, the RDAA president would have been forced to rely on a 73-year-old patient and her relatives for a medical history were it not for his computerised practice. But a few clicks of the mouse were all that was needed to compare the patient’s current ECG with one from a month earlier.

The comparison showed Dr Rischbieth the ECG was normal for that patient, saving her an 80 km journey to Adelaide, an $800 ambulance bill, the cost of a back-up ambulance crew to provide cover, and time waiting in casualty.

E-health, even at its most basic level – allowing doctors to access patient notes from the local hospital – is not only proving cost effective, it is also saving time and lives.

Research shows that computerised prescribing systems can significantly lower medication mistakes and adverse drug events. And, given that about one in 10 general practice patients experiences an adverse drug reaction over a six-month period (MJA 2006;184:321-24), the potential to make a difference is huge.

This is why progressing the e-health agenda across the country is crucial, says Dr Rischbieth.

…..

And, for many doctors, this lack of symmetry is where the frustration lies. Patience is wearing thin among GPs who have been waiting what seems like an eternity for a functional national system to develop.

They want to see a system that can provide crucial medical details at the touch of a button, that allows professionals to ‘talk’ to each other via secure messaging; to write and process prescriptions electronically; and to scrap the clutter of paperwork.

While all of this does happen to an extent in some areas at a local level, national progress could be described as glacial.

Original plans to introduce a national shared electronic health record were based on a 2010 timeframe.

But that now looks unlikely, with 2012 looking like a more realistic, but still challenging, goal.

Groups in charge of driving the process include the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), which has been entrusted by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to develop standards for the seamless delivery of e-health across every state and territory.

Consultancy firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has been handed $1.3 million by COAG to prepare a national e-health strategy, due later this year.

Former chair of the now-defunct General Practice Computing Group Dr Ron Tomlins believes the extended timescale is simply because NEHTA has “picked the pineapple up by the wrong end”.

“They should be focusing on resources that people already have and encouraging them to use them better and more appropriately rather than search for some... magic solution.”

More here (if you have access to Medical Observer)

http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/medical-observer/news/Article.aspx/Ready,-set%E2%80%A6-slow-

Equally we have the following from another source.

Government dragging the e-health chain in Australia

10 July 2008

Excerpted from a special report I wrote for this week’s Australian Doctor

Jim Clark was known as Silicon Valley’s $3 billion man: the first person to start up three companies that were each capitalised at $1 billion or more. Starting in the 1980s with Silicon Graphics, a pioneer of film and CGI animation, he grew bored with that and helped found Netscape, which launched the world’s first widely used web browser, in the early 1990s.

…..

Clark had the right idea, but back in the last decade he was too far ahead of the curve to make it work. Now, however, e-health is an idea whose time has come.

“E-health is an idea whose time has not only come, it is overdue,” says Associate Professor Ron Tomlins, associate professor of general practice at the University of Sydney, who spent several years as chairman of the General Practice Computing Group.

Professor Tomlins said government and professional initiatives in Australia over the past 10 years that put computers, powerful software and broadband in practices have prepared a foundation that will enable GPs to harness the new online technologies that have been developing independently over the same period.

As more and more doctors turn to the Internet as a professional information source, more than 80% now report that the Internet is essential to their practice, according to research in the US by Manhattan Research. Consumers today, meanwhile, get more health information from the Internet than from their doctors, according to market research firm iCrossing.In Australia, trials of electronic health records and other online applications are under way in most states (see Case studies), while the Federal Government tries to set standards through the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) to ensure consistency, portability and security of records.

In Canada, the government has set a target of 50% of the population to have electronic personal health records by the end of 2009. In Australia, meanwhile, the government is “dragging the chain”, according to Professor Tomlins, with NEHTA recently announcing that it would be another 10 years before personal health records were in established use in Australia. Professor Tomlins said NEHTA is not moving fast enough, pointing out that it underspent its budget by almost $40 million last financial year.

“General practice is frustrated as hell in the lack of interest from the Commonwealth,” Professor Tomlins said. “The state governments are moving things along with projects such as Healthelink in NSW, SHER [shared electronic health records] and secure messaging projects in the Northern Territory and chronic health management programs in South Australia. But there’s a real danger that they won’t be interoperable and we will end up with a rail gauge situation.”

But regardless of that danger, Professor Tomlins says, the increase in data available to GPs puts them in a good position to use new technologies to improve patient care. “GPs have spent the past few years building up electronic databases for their practices,” according to Professor Tomlins. “Tools are now available to use that data to better understand how better care can be delivered to their patients. They can conduct clinical audits to mine that data, both clinical and financial, and benchmark themselves against other practices to find ways to improve the way care is delivered.

More here

http://wellingdigital.com.au/2008/07/10/government-dragging-the-e-health-chain-in-australia/

All I can add is that the time for messing around should be close to past. We have the Deloittes National E-Health Strategy due in 6-7 weeks and hopefully after that is released (and that it is will be a bit of a test given it can hardly be flattering) we will have a platform for discussion to move the agenda forward.

One hope is that I am hearing from a range of sources that the NEHTA Acting CEO is making a difference! – If this turns out to be sustained it is a very good development. If you read Andrew – and I know your staff do – keep it up!

I sure hope so!

David.