Here are a few I have come across this week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and a paragraph or two. For the full article click on the link above title of the article.
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/security-for-e-health-data/story-e6frg6nf-1225809982612
Security for e-health data
- Natasha Bita
- From: The Australian
- December 14, 2009
INSURANCE companies and employers will be locked out of the national health database planned to start next year.
Every newborn, as well as every Australian holding a Medicare card or Veterans Affairs card, will automatically be allocated a "healthcare identification" number that privacy groups have branded a de facto national ID card.
The number may eventually be linked to patients' medical records, but anyone who misuses the information will face two years' jail, under draft legislation released by Health Minister Nicola Roxon on Friday.
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Medical professionals ask for clarity on e-health
- Andrew Colley
- From: The Australian
- December 15, 2009
A BROAD coalition of health professionals believes it made progress in its quest for $6.3 billion in federal funding at the government's massive broadband conference in Sydney last week.
The Coalition for e-Health's hopes have been buoyed by strong indications it has support from Kevin Rudd, Health and Ageing Minister Nicola Roxon and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.
Michael Legg, president of the Health Informatics Society, which convenes the CeH, said the group had been asked to hang tight.
Professor Legg said the group had been strongly encouraged by comments made by Department of Health and Ageing deputy secretary Jane Halton at the conference that indicated the department was behind the group.
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http://www.itwire.com/content/view/30010/53/
Old age problem gets new age solution
by Beverley Head
Monday, 14 December 2009
With 13.3 per cent of the Australian population now aged 65 or over, iSoft’s decision to launch its first end-to-end information system for aged care providers seems smartly timed.
The largest listed health IT provider in Australia launched its Aged Care – Enterprise Wide Health system, on the same day as the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed that the median age of the Australian population had risen by more than five years to 36.9 over the last two decades.
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http://www.pharmacynews.com.au/article/psa-partners-with-gps-on-e-health/508721.aspx
PSA partners with GPs on e-health
17 December 2009
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) has joined forces with general practitioners to push forward the uptake and implementation of electronic prescribing.
During collaborative partnership talks in Canberra, PSA and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) reaffirmed that electronic prescribing of medications could provide substantial benefits to consumers through better medication management and reduced medication errors.
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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/174280.php
Health Professions United On E-Health, Australia
17 Dec 2009
A high-level meeting of health organisations in Canberra has scoped the development of a robust, patient-centred e-prescribing system through a collaborative partnership between doctors and pharmacists.
The roundtable, hosted by the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, reaffirmed that e-prescribing of medications can provide substantial benefits to consumers through better medication management and reduced medication errors, as well as improved communication between doctors, pharmacists and patients.
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$15.5m boost for rural NT health
17 Dec, 2009 03:51 PM
REMOTE health service delivery is set for a $15.5 million boost under joint Territory and Federal Government funding, Minister for Information, Communications and Technology Policy Karl Hampton announced last Friday.
"This is one of the largest ICT milestones in the Territory's history that will help deliver life-changing services for thousands of remote Territorians," Mr Hampton said.
"Improved health service delivery in remote Territory towns such as Lajamanu, Dagaragu and Papunya will go a long way towards Closing the Gap in Indigenous Disadvantage.
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http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/329886/mandatory_isp-level_filtering_report_released
Mandatory ISP-Level Filtering report released
Enex TestLab finds that a "technically competent user" can circumvent filtering technology based on ACMA’s blacklist
15 December, 2009 16:32
After much delay the Federal Government has released the results of Enex TestLab’s test pilot into mandatory ISP-level content filtering, finding that a technically competent user could circumvent filtering technology based on ACMA’s blacklist.
According to the report, initially all filters had issues with loading the ACMA blacklist indicating a need for routine checking to ensure the blacklist is filtered correctly with each update.
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Internet censorship plan gets the green light
ASHER MOSES
December 15, 2009 - 11:13PM
The Federal Government has announced it will proceed with controversial plans to censor the internet after Government-commissioned trials found filtering a blacklist of banned sites was accurate and would not slow down the internet.
But critics, including the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia and the Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam, said the trial results were not surprising and the policy was still fundamentally flawed.
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http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2009/12/14/109111_ntnews.html
Health service fined for info leak
NADJA HAINKE
December 14th, 2009
A TERRITORY health service has been charged thousands of dollars after a patient's private information was mistakenly released to his employer three times.
The information commissioner said the errors caused "embarrassment, hurt and humiliation" to the patient.
"On each occasion ... the complainant had been questioned about matters to do with the complainant's health status by staff at the complainant's employer," the commissioner's case note said.
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http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=508475
GPs to get prescribing feedback
by Jared Reed
Almost 200 GP practices have signed up for a divisions-run scheme that will provide instant feedback on the quality of their prescribing decisions.
The pilot project, run by the National Prescribing Service and divisions, will analyse GPs’ prescription for chronic heart failure and hypertension against eight clinical indicators. These conditions were chosen because of evidence indicating under-prescribing of first-line recommended treatments.
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http://www.securecomputing.net.au/News/163197,privacy-must-be-addressed-for-innovations-sake.aspx
Privacy must be addressed, for innovation's sake
Liz Tay | Dec 18, 2009 11:50 AM
Privacy the only road-block to IT triumphs.
Unresolved privacy issues may be limiting technological and scientific progress, according to a prominent U.S. computer scientist.
Tom M. Mitchell of Carnegie Mellon University believes the rise of machine-learning algorithms during the past decade has yielded compelling potentials for mining and analysing real-time data.
Mitchell heads up Carnegie Mellon's Machine Learning Department, where he is researching uses for real-time location data from smart phones.
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http://www.itnews.com.au/News/162842,feds-to-deliver-digital-reform-agenda-within-six-months.aspx
Feds to deliver digital reform agenda within six months
Dec 14, 2009 2:48 PM
Conroy calls for cross-Government, industry cooperation.
Cooperation between the various levels of Government and industry bodies will be required to drive forth digital economic reform, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has said.
Speaking at the closing of the Realising our Broadband Future forum in Sydney, Conroy outlined the Government's plans for ideas and content generated in the two-day physical and virtual gabfest.
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http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20091412-20404-2.html
Gaming to fight cancer
Monday, 14 December 2009
CSIRO is using the latest in computer gaming technology to help reduce the incidence of one of the most common cancers in Australia – bowel cancer.
According to CSIRO Preventative Health Flagship scientist, Dr Trevor Lockett, on average 90 Australians die from colon cancer each week.
"As such, early diagnosis has become a national health priority," Dr Lockett said.
He said timely and effective colonoscopy follow-up for National Bowel Cancer Screening Program subjects who test positive for blood in the stool is critical to helping this national initiative save lives.
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http://www.theage.com.au/national/cochlear-pioneer-canberra-must-listen-20091214-ksap.html
Cochlear pioneer: Canberra must listen
JULIA MEDEW
December 15, 2009
THE inventor of the bionic ear, Professor Graeme Clark, has called for the Government to fund cochlear implant replacements, saying it would be cruel to deprive deaf people of sound.
Professor Clark said he was shocked to learn last week that deaf people over the age of 21 who had a Government-funded cochlear implant did not receive funding to have it replaced when it stops working 10 to 15 years later.
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NBN leaves business baffled
- Mitchell Bingemann
- From: The Australian
- December 15, 2009
GOVERNMENT departments and bureaucrats were the main beneficiaries of last week's broadband gabfest, as keynote speakers failed to explain what business applications could be made possible by a national broadband network.
Australia Post corporate development manager Samantha Hannah-Rankin was one of a handful of local keynote speakers at the Realising our Broadband Future summit in Sydney, and the only speaker to really address how the government's $43 billion project could benefit business.
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Department of Health and Aging to launch indigenous health site
Aims to address chronic disease among indegenous Australians
14 December, 2009 11:49
The Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) is to launch a new Web portal aimed at providing an improved resource for managing chronic disease in indigenous Australians.
The site works toward achieving a measure under the Federal Government’s November 2008 $805.5 million Indigenous Chronic Disease Package aimed at supporting and promoting individual primary health care workers in the mainstream and Indigenous sectors to prevent and manage chronic disease in indigenous Australians.
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Enjoy!
David.
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