I received the following press release today. I thought the views were worth passing on.
5th January 2009
E-health strategy should be national priority in 2009, says leading software vendor
Medical Objects, a major Queensland-based software provider, believes Australia cannot afford to let another year slip by without significant progress on a national e-health strategy.
A report by Deloitte, commissioned by the Australian Health Ministers' Conference and released in December 2008, noted that only "marginal progress" had been made on e-health over the last decade even though Australian Governments had spent in excess of 5 billion dollars during that time on e-health projects (report summary, page 4).
"We believe it would be a tragedy if this excellent report, which sets out a sensible pathway for national co-ordination, was allowed to gather dust on a Canberra shelf", Medical-Objects CEO Mr Stephens said.
"With President-elect Obama planning to spending $US10 billion a year for each of the next five years on health IT including electronic records, Australia risks being left behind if our governments don't act quickly", Mr Stephens said.
The Deloitte report accurately points to the very real dangers of duplication and the growth of a multitude of incompatible systems and projects which would deny Australia the very real cost and patient health benefits on offer through the use of sophisticated internet-based software to manage patient information flows between health professionals.
Medical Objects which provides software to a number of Australian health organisations has long been an advocate of a standards based approach for messaging and decision support software through its participation in national and international standards bodies, and by building agreed standards into its products.
Mr Stephens said his company was already implementing most of the aspects that Deloitte identified as desirable in a truly national approach to e-health. For instance, Medical Objects already supports many of the priority solutions listed in the report such as Referrals, Discharge summaries, specialists' reports and notifications, decision support for medication management and test ordering, and health information knowledge bases.
Mr Stephens cited the free secure messaging service Medical Objects is providing to eligible medical practitioners under a two-year contract with General Practice Queensland as a great example of what can be done when e-health is approached on a system-wide basis. The new services provide health professionals with a secure, fast, integrated, reliable and easy contact directory and communication system that will improve efficiency, reduce the risk of legal action and allow for re-allocation of human resources within medical organisations.
"The only major barrier to a faster adoption of e-health in Australia has been the lack of co-ordination between various governments and the Deloitte report is a rare opportunity to overcome the drawbacks of Australian federalism in this exciting new area", Mr Stephens said.
Glenn Stephens can be contacted on 0432 933 972
The release can be viewed on line here:
http://www.medical-objects.com.au/EHealthStrategy/tabid/449/Default.aspx
Good to see industry supporting the approach suggested by Deloittes.
David.
Glen Stephens, CEO of Medical Objects said:
ReplyDelete“The only major barrier to a faster adoption of e-health in Australia has been the lack of co-ordination between various governments and the Deloitte report is a rare opportunity to overcome the drawbacks of Australian federalism in this exciting new area”.
What exactly has he got in mind here?
He suggests there is only one major barrier - lack of coordination.
Perhaps he would be good enough to explain the 'mechanics' of how he envisages the "only major drawback" should be overcome.