Another False Dawn?

This appeared today in the West Australian.

Rudd watchdog to monitor hospitals

ANDREW TILLETT CANBERRA EXCLUSIVE,

The West Australian January 28, 2010, 2:45 am

Kevin Rudd and the States will set up a new national watchdog to scrutinise Australia's hospitals under a plan to fix the health system that stops short of a full Federal takeover.

It is understood bureaucrats are working on the $4 billion proposal, which could be announced within weeks and funded in the May Budget.

At the weekend the Prime Minister promised to make 2010 a year of major health reform and reining in costs, warning the growth in healthcare spending threatened to overwhelm State budgets.

.....

Part of the $4 billion in funding is also expected to include a big pot of cash for electronic health records, which the Government sees as a key way to cut costs and reduce life-threatening medical blunders.

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, set up by Mr Rudd to much of do the policy grunt work, recommended the Commonwealth take full responsibility for running and funding primary health care, basic dental care and aged care, and pay the States for the number and types of procedures performed in public hospitals instead of giving them block grants.

.....

Full Article here:

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/6729890/rudd-watchdog-to-monitor-hospitals/

We shall wait and see. And will they have a clue about how to spend whatever funds are made available properly? Your guess is as good as mine!

The idea of using e-Health to monitor hospital performance is hardly new and key to success is having the right indicators being measured (clinician designed ideally) and having the information derived from operational systems so the answers can't be 'adjusted' by pressured bureaucrats!

Of course this all requires hospitals which have all those feeder systems and we are not quite there yet I would suggest.

If the leak is accurate it is also a worry that the other areas of the health sector do not seem to be included in some form of upgrade.

As I said above - we shall see!

David.