Australia is planning to introduce a single National Registration System for all Health Professionals. It is to be live and operational July 1, 2010
The web site for the project is found here:
http://www.nhwt.gov.au/natreg.asp
This provides the following background.
“The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) at its meeting of 26 March 2008 took a major step towards improving Australia’s health system by signing an Intergovernmental Agreement on the health workforce.
The new system will for the first time create a single national registration and accreditation system for ten health professions: chiropractors; dentists (including dental hygienists, dental prosthetists and dental therapists); medical practitioners; nurses and midwives; optometrists; osteopaths; pharmacists; physiotherapists; podiatrists; and psychologists. The new arrangement will help health professionals move around the country more easily, reduce red tape, provide greater safeguards for the public and promote a more flexible, responsive and sustainable health workforce. For example, the new scheme will maintain a public national register for each health profession that will ensure that a professional who has been banned from practising in one place is unable to practise elsewhere in Australia.”
The plan will actually impact of the order of 500,000 people who work in the total health sector.
What you may have missed are a few things relating to how this rather large change is going to relate to NEHTA’s plans to allocate each of these people, not only a provider ID number but also to issue a smartcard (or equivalent token) to enable the National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) which you can read about here:
Also going live on July 1, 2010 is the National Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
The plans for how this is going to actually be achieved are found in a report entitled:
Preparing for commencement day AHPRA Establishment Plan 2009–10
The full document can be here:
http://www.ahpra.gov.au/documents/AHPRA%20Establishment%20Plan%202009-10%20June%202009.pdf
The section that most interested me of this document was this.
4.5 Information, Communications and Technology (ICT)
AHPRA will be dependent on technology to provide a national public register and to enable consistent national processes for registration and complaints in each of its State and Territory offices.
AHPRA will provide multiple channels of service delivery but will encourage uptake of online transactions wherever possible, including for renewal of registration.
AHPRA already has an ICT Strategy in place and an enterprise architecture covering the registration system, data migration, business systems, and infrastructure. Delivery of the ICT Strategy is oversighted by an ICT Reference Group comprised of representatives from existing registration bodies, State and Territory health departments and project staff. It is chaired by the Chief Executive of the South Australian Department of Health.
A new registration system has been selected and will be operational by March 2010.
Managing a smooth transition from current systems to the new system requires working collaboratively with State and Territory boards to remove duplicated registrations and cleanse data to avoid any errors being introduced into the new system, and to make sure information on the new system is accurate and up to date.
I was made aware of all this as I researched a brochure that arrived from my local registration authority – the NSW Medical Board. What I read on the cover follows.
NEW SOUTH WALES MEDICAL BOARD
Submission on Bill B
17 July 2009
INTRODUCTION
The New South Wales Medical Board (NSWMB) has supported the introduction of a system of National Registration of medical practitioners and has actively contributed to the debate.
The NSWMB considers that Bill B as it currently stands has touched on most of the major elements required of a system of professional regulation, but it has significant shortcomings in some areas, and without major amendment it will be inadequate for the purposes for which it is intended, and possibly unworkable. The Bill is overly prescriptive in some areas, while others where a degree of detail is necessary are very short on detail.
The Bill is particularly unsatisfactory in its approach to the critical matters of Conduct, Performance and Health, apparently misunderstanding the relationship between these major aspects of a NSWMB’s work, and proposing a system that is at the same time both cumbersome and inadequate.
The NSWMB notes that the NSW Government has indicated that it is likely to opt out of the Complaints provisions, and to the extent that this occurs, the NSWMB’s concerns regarding these provisions may not be relevant. However the NSWMB believes that insofar as it is possible, the legislation should represent best practice, and if it is amended to reflect this, there is a greater chance of NSW reversing the decision to opt out. Also, with movement of practitioners, the NSWMB will have to deal with the consequences of poor decisions made under inadequate provisions if Bill B is not rectified.
The NSWMB has made its views clear at the various forums at which an opportunity has been given to comment on Bill B, and it also notes in this regard that its concerns regarding the complaints handling system have been echoed by all other Medical Boards and apparently by a substantial number of other professional Boards as well.
Finally, the NSWMB is pleased to note that its concerns about Bill B have been listened to carefully by the NRAIP staff responsible for developing the next version, and it is hopeful that many of the issues raised by it and other bodies during the consultation process will be understood and taken into account in the next version.
NRAIP has indicated that there will be no further public consultation when the next draft of the legislation is developed. The NSWMB believes that in a matter as critical as this where legislation is being developed that will set the course for the regulation of health professions in Australia into the future, it is vital that more time is taken to get it right, rather than adhering to deadlines set several years ago which are becoming increasingly unrealistic. Serious consideration must be given to allowing a further round of consultation so that the new system gets off to a sound start, with the commitment of those who will be participating in it strengthened by the knowledge that it is a good system, rather than one that has been finalised in haste to meet artificially imposed deadlines.
This text is found here:
Browsing around I also found this
TENDER APPROVED FOR NATIONAL REGISTRATION SYSTEM
PROJECT UPDATE
JUNE 2009
Eclipse Pty Ltd has been awarded the contract to supply and implement the registration system for the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for the Health Professions.
Eclipse is an Australian company, part of the UXC group. The software product that they will provide is ‘Pivotal’, a case management system based on the Microsoft.NET platform. The company has expertise in delivering the product within registration and complaint handling environments.
The selection panel, which included two CEOs of current registration boards, was impressed by the large number and quality of responses to the tender. The panel viewed demonstrations and undertook site visits to confirm the ability of the chosen system to perform in relation to registration and complaint functionality.
The new system will be delivered to allow training to commence in March 2010 and full operation from 1 July 2010.
Detailed design will commence in July 2009. The implementation team will ensure that the design of the new system is reviewed by staff from current State and Territory boards.
Louise Morauta
Project Director
June 2009
Source:
So what it seems we have here is:
1. At least one Medical Board – the biggest – not exactly happy with planned legislation
2. The need to establish a major system managing the Identity and Credential details for 500,000 people.
3. NEHTA planning to use this and the source data-bases from each of the States to issue identifiers and secure tokens to all these people.
Given the system to manage this is not to commence being trained upon until March 2010 I suspect the risk of delay and chaos is not zero!
The chance of having all health providers having the appropriate ID and tokens so the IHI systems can go operational on July 1 next year must also be put at somewhat less than 100%.
David.
3 comments:
Louise Morauta was the Department's Chair of the Stakeholder Advisory Group for the Better Medication Management System in 2001 or thereabouts. That was a very complex project and so is the National Registration Accreditation Scheme!!
Exactly and look what happened to the BMMS. Rather than less than 100% I'd say it is 100% certain it won't be operational for at least another 18 months or more.
Oh no. Chiropractors are in their too!
This is a real problem and undermines the integrity of the whole system.
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