The following has just been released.
Media Release
3rd August 2009
Australian health software leaders create major clinical messaging network
Medical-Objects and ArgusConnect, Australia's main clinical communications networks, today agreed to integrate their secure clinical communications and directory services, a major breakthrough for secure electronic delivery of clinical information in Australia.
“This historic collaboration will significantly improve clinical communication between health professionals ,” Glenn Stephens, CEO of Medical-Objects, said.
"It is a big step forward in developing a fully interoperable health message system in Australia",
"The bigger the network, the more powerful a tool it is for every user", Mr Stephens said.
Operational by October 2009, the agreement will enable 20,000 health professionals to securely exchange clinical information using their Medicare PKI site/location encryption certificates in every state and territory of Australia.
"This agreement meets the needs of the customers of both organisations", Ross Davey, CEO of ArgusConnect said.
Dr John Kastrissios, Board Chair, General Practice Queensland, welcomed the agreement.
"The partnership between Medical-Objects and Argus will greatly streamline the sending and receiving of referrals and reports between health providers",
"Patients will benefit most from this significant decision",
"Medical-Objects and Argus deserve considerable praise for making this happen," Dr Kasstrissios said.
Interoperability is also the key issue, according to Greg Holden, Information Services manager, General Practice SA Inc.
"One of the major inhibitors to use (of eHealth solutions) by GPs in South Australia is most certainly the lack of interoperability",
"We need secure messaging systems that can consistently and reliably talk to each other".
This move by the two major players in clinical messaging in Australia will also form the basis for their progressive adoption of NeHTA specifications and standards as they are developed and negotiated with the health IT industry. “
The connected system will link the messaging delivery, directory services and work together to develop interconnectivity. This work will be based on the NeHTA work that is and has been done where it reasonably can be done by both parties.
About Medical-Objects
Founded in 2002, Medical-Objects are a software company with a vision of a tightly connected integrated health platform. Built on open standards and strong architectural solutions, Medical-Objects provides rich messaging between all sectors of the health sector to over 12,500 health professionals as well as being world leaders in standards based Clinical Decision Support Tools.
For more information on Medical-Objects contact:
Medical-Objects
Phone: 07 5456 6000
Email: info@medical-objects.com.au
Web: http://www.medical-objects.com.au
About ArgusConnect
ArgusConnect is an Australian company that develops, deploys and supports the Argus secure clinical messaging system.
Argus was first developed in 2000 for use by all areas of healthcare throughout the Northern Territory and has since been adopted as the preferred option supported by more than 50% of Divisions of General Practice across the country Australia. As a result of this strong support by General Practice, Argus is now being used by more than 9500 healthcare providers including specialists, allied health workers, aboriginal and community health centres, pharmacists, hospitals, aged care facilities, radiologists, and pathologists to communicate with GPs and each other.
ArgusConnect is also a founding partner in the MediSecure® Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions inititiative which is a groundbreaking venture in electronically transferring prescriptions from doctors to pharmacies.
For more information on ArgusConnect contact:
ArgusConnect
Phone: 03 5335 2220
Web: http://www.argusconnect.com.au
---- End Release.
It seems to me this can only be a good thing to see an evolving interoperable secure messaging system for the Australian e-Health domain to utilise. A hopeful sign!
David.
This is just spin.
ReplyDeleteThe PIPWG is working to allow all secure messaging providers (and whoever else cares to implement the standard) the ability to interconnect.
PIPWG is a collaboration between industry and NEHTA to produce a standard for use by the industry. It was established because of the DoHA PIP (Practice Incentive Program) released earlier this year.
Hi Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThe work will be based on NEHTA's work where it can, but it is important to note that this agreement allows for toll-free cross network communication between Medical-Objects and ArgusConnect customers using PKI. Regardless of the work of NEHTA, commercial agreements will need to be in place between the messaging vendors.
We most certainly will be implementing the work from NEHTA and this agreement doesn't take away the commitment we have made to the PIPWG.
Glenn Stephens
CEO, Medical-Objects
Dear Spinman, even if all the participants in the PIPWG agree to implement NEHTA specifications for message exchange, the logistics of actually exchanging messages between providers requires a high degree of coordination and planning. By making this public announcement these two companies have made an irreversible commitment to actually DO something, unlike several of their competitors whose only concern is to create the chimera of cooperation with NEHTA, to reassure their existing users. This is a great day for secure electronic messaging in Australia, and I hope it lights a fire under the pretenders' butts. Gettamoovon.
ReplyDeleteDear Spinman
ReplyDeleteMedical Objects and Argus Connect are both members of the PIPWG which is chaired by the MSIA. So they are working within the collaborative environment set up by NEHTA and MSIA to get secure messaging into place.
It is unfair of you, dare I suggest sour grapes, to infer that the MedicalObject-ArgusConnect announcement is just 'spin'. Far from it. It looks more like a serious announcement of genuine collaboration by both parties to combine their customers under one communications messaging umbrella.
Perhaps they are also semaphoring HealthLinks that if it is serious about collaboration they had better get a move on and join the party else they might well find themselves being gobbled up; gobble, gobble, gobble.
Now if MO, Argus and healthLinks did actually work together what might that mean for everyone? For the vendors, for NEHTA, for MSIA, for the market and, of course, for government?
Well said Sir. It is indeed high time Healthlink.net joined in the collaboration. The question of course is whether in the true spirit of collaboration Medical-Objects and Argus Connect would welcome Healthlink into their fold. Would they?
ReplyDeleteMost certainly. The MO/Argus announcement simply a precursor to broader interconnectivity to be enabled by the agreements on the technologies under the PIPWG process. So we would expect that because MO, ArgusConnect and HealthLInk are all active participants in the PIPWG planning we will have this happening soon; hopefully not too long after our October timeline of MO/Argus interconnectivity.
ReplyDelete"true spirit of collaboration ... Medical-Objects and Argus Connect"
ReplyDeleteHa. It's a competitive move bar none.
A little birdie, though a reliable one, told me MO and Argus are two of the primary culprits hindering progress by the Nehta PIPWG.
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteOur motives for the connection of the networks was a result of changing the conversation about messaging to we are with Provider X and we are with Provider Y and really just enable people to leverage secure messaging.
We raised some concerns at the PIPWG, but not to hinder the process, but to initiate the collaboration and raise issues we felt were not addressed with a wider deployment. We will support Nehta where there recommendations are sound and raise issues when they are not. I really wouldn't expect anything else for an industry led collaboration. If you have examples of hindering progress, post them or call me 0432 933 972 if you don't want to reveal sources.
As for progress, I think the word progress conjures up images of Aldous Huxley's brave new world. We would rather see it be done right.
Glenn
That little birdie speaks with forked tongue. The debate in the PIPWG has been spirited and sometimes a bit heated, but no single participant can be accused of undermining the process. Each vendor has the right to protect their interests, their market, and to favour technologies in which they have a competitive advantage. Despite these incentives to dissimulate, there is still a lot of give and take happening in that group, in an atmosphere of mutual respect. The 2 vendors you slander have made a huge, positive contribution.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most significant moves in Australian eHealth - the base building block is in place, and who cares what the motives are - congratulations to both parties
ReplyDeleteThis may all sound very good but the major problem with Argus is that when it doesn't work, (which happens frequently)it costs a significant amount of money to diagnose and fix whereas HealthLink doesn't cost the GP anything (other parties pay) and fixing problems is part of the service. How does Medical Objects work in that respect? How will I know whether I have to pay for a support call and for that matter, how will I know who to call?
ReplyDeleteCant let that (anonymous) comment stand without response. Our CRM stats show that the comment about Argus not working frequently is just not true. Also most failures are due to environment (network, site changes, internet).
ReplyDeleteThe comment about 'who pays' suggests this is a GP-focussed view. When a message is simply from a pathology/radiology firm then maybe there is justification for support costs to be borne by the sender, but if the GP is the one that benefits (eg when they use the messaging for sending referrals, getting specialist reports, receiving allied health reports etc) surely the GP should pay something for access to good Technical Support.
The matador complaining about product unreliability is unwittingly arguing for the very thing that interconnectivity is meant to promote. If he/she finds a product to be unreliable, then change providers. The provider chosen becomes responsible for ensureing delivery of messages, regardless of whether the data is handed over to another provider during its journey. The work of the PIPWG is meant to offer this choice to users. As I type we are discussing these very issues...
ReplyDeleteFrom Jim Cocks
ReplyDeleteI must admit that anonymous comment regarding Argus (or for that matter MO)reliability had my fingers twitching, but I forebore to respond. Now that one of the protagonists has responded, my direct experience of installing and supporting Argus implementations has been that the product is simple to install, support is almost instantaneous and thorough. This was in both GP and specialist settings in regional and remote rural areas.
What does vary is the relative complexity of the infrastructure, and the level of sophistication of users. Our experience was that a little time spent adjusting and training users directly affected the frequency and severity of support calls. Of course, any changes made to the operating environment will affect the operation of the products.
My experience with Argus has been mirrored by my colleagues who have chosen to go down the Medical Objects road - while there are technical differences between the products, they are in the main robust and reliable, and require far less support effort than, say, the clinical software packages currently on offer in the GP and specialist practice space.
One interesting side product of these implementations occurred when we started finding that specialists who were not currently running clinical software were keen to do so to take advantage of the messaging solutions on offer. I'm assuming this was a business decision made after considering the savings which would accrue from its use.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd make a comment or two as HealthLink has been mentioned in dispatches on this thread. We think it is great that Medical Objects and Argus have joined forces in this manner and salute their efforts to lead the way toward greater connectivity.
HealthLink has been fairly quiet of late because of a major focus on service upgrading and development of new services. For the record, we have over 5,500 active Australian sites (A total of 9,800 sites across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Pacific Islands). We have nearly 70 staff and revenue is growing at a steady but respectable 20% per annum year on year. in Australia we have small offices in most states and we have contracts with six government organisations and nearly 200 laboratories, radiology practices and hospitals. Recently we have been named as number two in our field internationally, second to Medcom of Denmark with whom we are collaborating on a range of development initiatives.
Our focus is on " Primary Care Integration" which includes messaging but also includes provision of online services, security, authentication management and in depth support. Messaging is an important part of the puzzle, but online transactions are now taking centre stage and delivering a seamless, fully integrated service is paramount.
We notice that some of our competitors are busily trying to make GPs pay for support by the hour and we would certainly advise them against doing this as creating uncertainty over levels of variable costs for small GP practices is getting quite a negative reaction and creating a rather nit-picking atmosphere.
Unfortunately Australia still has some way to go to sort out its health sector structure but we are now starting to see considerable progress in some quarters and a lot of opportuntiyy for our more advanced services which until now we have been unable to find a market for.
I am pleased to see that there is still a lot of interest in developments in the primary care integration space. You can expect to see some quite interesting developments over the next six months.
Kind regards,
Tom Bowden
CEO HealthLink Ltd
Nice article Sir. The question is whether in the true spirit of collaboration Medical-Objects and Argus Connect would welcome Healthlink into their fold?
ReplyDelete