I don’t plan to make this a habit but this Comment was so spot on I really felt it needed to be brought more into the open!
Begin Comment -----
"NEHTA would like to offer Software Vendors the opportunity to participate in a 1 day workshop to review the Draft Electronic Transfer of Prescription (ETP) Release 1.0 package."
I really am at a total loss to see what intrinsically concrete value NEHTA can bring to the table that is worth giving any attention to.
Look at it this way. The Gov't (DOHA) and NEHTA have been left behind in the dust by the two private script exchanges. It will be impossible for Gov't and/or NEHTA to claw back the initiative and lead the way. Therefore, whatever 'stuff' NEHTA pontificates on will be just that - 'stuff' - stuff that the private exchange vendors can look at, consider at their leisure, take on board any ideas that they like, reject what they don't like, continue to develop and expand their services, lock-in their growing customer base, compete with each other, and find ways to make Gov't pay the price they seek to be involved in their exchange services.
Tell me how NEHTA can in any way influence this outcome in any meaningful way.
Tell me how NEHTA can become relevant in the ETP space.
And above all - tell me why NEHTA should continue receiving bucketloads of our hard earned dollars to pontificate over the ETP space where it would seem NEHTA has absolutely no way of exercising any real influence on the outcomes despite its misguided wishful thinking to the contrary.
Sunday, November 22, 2009 12:35:48 PM
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Can I say these all seem to me to be very fair questions!
Some of these commenters really should start their own blogs – but they are probably smart enough to realize that is a career ending, and very time consuming step!
Thanks anon.
David.
------- End of Initial Draft of posting.
Since then we have had two more comments – both of which continue the theme.
Number 1:
Your last commentator makes some very good points, particularly "How can NEHTA become relevant in the ETP space".
That is an excellent question. Does anyone know the answer?
Could NEHTA please give us the answer?
Number 2:
I doubt anyone can provide an answer to the above question. As in so many areas of endeavour market forces will eventually prevail. Even Peter Fleming said as much when he stated recently that he was very excited that two script exchanges had started up and that NEHTA was looking forward to working with them. What influence does he think NEHTA can possibly have on what they do? Surely it's time to come clean.
David, in the context of the private ETPs, do you know if NEHTA has documented answers to the following basic questions:
- this is what we can do?
- this is what we will do? and by when.
- this is how we will do it? and with whom.
- this is the impact we will have as a consequence.
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All these are very good questions and I don’t have the answers! Maybe one of the NEHTA readers could pass them on to the relevant people and post a response?
And as a second little postscript:
I wondered about why I missed the meeting notification from NEHTA and then I noticed the following.
From Wed 18 Oct 2009 15:35:05 +1000
From: NEHTA RSS <>
Date: Wed 18 Oct 2009 15:35:05 +1000
Message-Id: http://nehta.gov.au/media-centre/nehta-news/562-invitation-to-participate-in-electronic-transfer-of-prescription-workshop-27-november
X-RSS-Link: http://nehta.gov.au/media-centre/nehta-news/562-invitation-to-participate-in-electronic-transfer-of-prescription-workshop-27-november
X-RSS-Comments:
Delivery-Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:46:51
Status: U
Subject: Invitation to particpate in Electronic Transfer of Preescription workshop
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
X-Poco-UID: 41795840
X-Poco-Status: R
X-Account: NEHTA
Invitation to particpate in Electronic Transfer of Preescription workshop
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This is what my RSS feed from NEHTA gave me: A month delay and riddled with typos.
Odd that.
Seems I was not alerted about the meeting in a timely fashion – not that I would want to attend for the reasons outlined above!
D.
And in late breaking news – for all those planning to attend the Forum has now been moved to December 1 and to the Stamford Airport Hotel at KSA (Sydney Airport). Talk about the inability to organise a large drinking party in a brewery with unlimited funds – or equivalent!
D.
5 comments:
They certainly are excellent questions. NEHTA’s Board should be insisting the CEO provide immediate answers. Let’s face it there is one hell of a lot that NEHTA cannot do, so it shouldn’t be pretending it can. All that serves to do is to divert NEHTA’s attention from the high priorities where it just might possibly (just might possibly) be able to contribute something of value.
Things will get a lot more serious as soon as MIRIXA flicks its script exchange US buddies on the table to sucker the IBM/Medicare camp with its megalomaniacal buddy the PGA. That's when everything will go pear-shaped for the two private exchanges. Who thinks NEHTA is blind to the main game?
Does the following seem reasonable as a first step?
What can we do?
We can facilitate establishing the basic infrastructure upon which the IT community can build functional ehealth solutions.
What will we do?
In the first instance we will focus all our energies and resources on:
(i) project managing the development of UHIs and their full implementation by the health system throughout Australia
(ii) project managing the specification and adoption of secure messaging architecture with the full involvement and agreement of the healthIT vendor community
(iii) project managing the specification, implementation and ongoing maintenance of SNOMED CT
(iv) project managing the entire spectrum of privacy requirements for ehealth including the passage of appropriate legislation and adoption by the health system throughout Australia
When will we do it by?
(i) ?
(ii) ?
(iii) ?
(iv) ?
How we will do it?
With whom will we do it?
How will the above benefit the health system?
We will deliver fully on the above before we do anything else.
Wow. If NEHTA was focussed on getting (i) to (iv) under its belt and nothing else we'd be jumping for joy. All the other projects NEHTA is flip flopping around with will automatically follow driven by market forces and competitive vendor activity - like SEHRs, escripts, edischarges. Is it too much to hope that NEHTA might step back and refocus on just doing the basic of basics so industry can move forward.
Your last commentator asked "Is it too much to hope that NEHTA might step back and refocus .......... ".
The answer is YES - it is too much to hope. Why? Because NEHTA sees itself as being the saviour of ehealth down-under. It has lost site of why it is there. It has some misguided belief it will be the one to develop EHRs and SEHRs and whatever else. It doesn't understand that vendor forces will drive the market and the applications incessantly forward regardless of whatever NEHTA does and they will use whatever is available that is good and worth using to do that.
Therefore, it follows that NEHTA never ever will be 'the' S-I-EHR whatever it thinks it should be, it should step back as one commentator said and just do the basics that we all need to build upon. It's a bit like farming really - we have a drought, we need rain, whatever we sow fails to grow. We need the GOD NEHTA to make some rain and sow some foundations so we can develop the applications to build upon the foundations and make NEHTA's work all worthwhile. At the moment we are being forced to piss in the win because that's what NEHTA does.
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