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.
General Comment:
Clearly the biggest news of the week was the focus the Prime Minister was bringing to bear on the health sector with his early January speeches.
Also pretty big was the suggestion that there might be a major injection of funds for e-Health via the COAG process sometime in the next few months.
See here:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2010/01/another-false-dawn.html
What seems to be missing in all this is the making of the link between e-Health and supporting the sustainability of the health system. Other countries get it but somehow it does not seem to have got through to those of our political elite. Blowed if I know why?
Interestingly the Defence Department seems to get it – see article below – and is funding a new e-Health system for our service people!
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http://www.theage.com.au/national/states-face-health-cost-avalanche-20100124-msl7.html
States face health cost avalanche
MICHELLE GRATTAN AND LORNA EDWARDS
January 25, 2010
FEDERAL Government spending per person on health will rise in real terms from $2290 today to $7210 in 2050, with state governments at risk of being overwhelmed by rising costs, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said.
Treasury projects that, on present trends, the total health spending of all states will exceed all of their tax revenues, excluding the GST, by 2045-46, and possibly earlier in some states.
This year the Australian Government is spending the equivalent of 4 per cent of GDP on health, but the third Intergenerational Report, prepared by Treasury with projections to 2050, forecasts this will increase to 7.1 per cent in 2050.
That is an increase of more than $200 billion by then. Forty years ago, federal spending on health was only 1.2 per cent of GDP.
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http://www.smh.com.au/national/health-spending-to-swamp-budgets-20100124-msls.html
Health spending to swamp budgets
JONATHAN PEARLMAN AND LINTON BESSER
January 25, 2010
KEVIN RUDD has warned that the states are being ''overwhelmed'' by rising health costs as he gears up for an election fight over an overhaul of hospital funding.
Citing figures from the coming third intergenerational report, the Prime Minister said yesterday health spending was set to swamp the public purse and he sought to pave the way for a battle with the states over control of funding.
He singled out NSW, where the Treasury estimates spending will more than double over 22 years to 55 per cent of the budget.
''Rapidly rising health costs create a real risk - absent [of] major policy change - state governments will be overwhelmed by their rising health spending obligations,'' he said in a speech in Sydney. ''Without reform, states' ability to provide the services they currently provide will be significantly strained. That is why 2010 must be and will be a year of major health reform.''
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Rudd's options on health costs are alarmist and misleading
January 27, 2010
Welcome to another year of media manipulation by our political leaders. Don't you love it? The Rudd Government is sitting on two major economic reports - from the Henry review on tax reform and Treasury's third intergenerational report - and some day soon it will let us see them. Meanwhile, it's leaking to journalists or dropping into speeches bits and pieces from them.
In the week leading up to Australia Day, Kevin Rudd gave a series of speeches in each capital city purporting to outline the findings of the intergenerational report on the implications of our ageing population. His version was both debatable and - I think we'll find - quite misleading.
In ''sounding the alarm bells'' on the effects of ageing, his first point was that it will lead to much slower growth in our material standard of living. Whereas average real income per person grew by 1.9 per cent a year over the past 40 years, Treasury's projections show it growing by only 1.5 per cent a year over the next 40.
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http://www.psnews.com.au/Page_psn2017.html
Defence battles health problems
New medical services that improve the treatment of wounded servicemen and women in the Australian Defence Force have been announced by the Minister for Defence Personnel, Greg Combet.
Mr Combet said the health and wellbeing of Defence personnel was a top priority for the Government.
“That is why we are putting considerable funding into new and improved Defence health initiatives,” he said.
.....
“We will continue to provide our personnel with world class health care, that is why we are also funding a comprehensive e-health system to improve the maintenance of ADF health records,” he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/enterprise/computers-under-constant-attack-20100128-n1s0.html
Computers under constant attack
CONRAD WALTERS
January 29, 2010
THIRTY per cent of computer systems for the nation's essential services such as banks, government and utilities are repeatedly attacked by hackers every month, according to an international report released today. More than half of those targets are hit multiple times a week or even multiple times a day, and the situation could get worse.
Forty per cent of the Australian experts surveyed for the report believed the nation would sustain a ''major cyber incident'' against its key services in the next 12 months. Given a two-year timeframe, the figure jumped to 53 per cent, and 76 per cent expected a major digital strike against the nation's critical infrastructure within five years.
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http://www.pharmacynews.com.au/article/nps-drug-information-hotline-shelved/510137.aspx
NPS drug information hotline shelved
28 January 2010 | by Mark Gertskis
A drug information telephone hotline used by pharmacists will be shut down in the middle of the year because of rising costs and limited reach.
The National Prescribing Service (NPS) has confirmed that it would stop funding the Therapeutic Advice and Information Service (TAIS) on 30 June.
Staffed by specialist pharmacists, the service provides information on new drugs, side effects and drug interactions.
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http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=510128
GPs lack email for discharge summaries
by Jared Reed
A fax is the GP’s preferred method of receiving a hospital discharge summary because many practices do not have an email address, despite high levels of computerisation.
In a study that pitted fax, email, post and patient hand delivery against each other, fax and email were found to be the most reliable method of a GP receiving their patient’s discharge summary, in randomised controlled trial of 196 geriatric patients at a Sydney teaching hospital.
The researchers found that most practices stored their information electronically, and almost 90% used medical prescribing software - but most still preferred to receive information by fax, meaning staff would need to manually scan documents to the patient’s file.
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Gaming tech spurs development of hyperfast medical imaging systems
University, hospital team to build tools to boost medical image processing by 1,000 times.
- Lucas Mearian (Computerworld (US))
- 28 January, 2010 08:34
- Comments
University and hospital researchers have taken a cue from the gaming industry by using 3D video graphics chips to develop a parallel software platform that can speed the processing times, in this case for medical digital imaging, by 10 to 1,000 times.
Northeastern University in Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) were jointly awarded a $1.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation in December to develop the technology and use it to enhance several biomedical imaging applications, including software designed for breast and brain imaging.
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http://www.psnews.com.au/Page_psn20116.html
Agencies plug into eHealth systems
The Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, has visited the offices of Medicare Australia in Canberra to see for herself how a new, secure eHealth system would work for health care patients and professionals.
Ms Roxon said her visit showed how useful tools such as electronic health records, medications-management systems and electronic discharge, referrals and prescriptions would be. She said the new e-health system would improve patient care and efficiency.
She said unique healthcare identifiers would be assigned to all health consumers and professionals by the middle of the year, following the passage of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and would be provided in addition to Medicare numbers to ensure security.
Ms Roxon said the Government was “committed to continuing implementation of eHealth to support a more effective health system.”
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A new era in clinical communications: a report on the past year's work at NEHTA.
Introduction
The development of a national electronic health system for Australia goes hand in hand with consultation and collaboration with government, industry and health sector stakeholders. Meeting the needs of the Australian public and ensuring that e-health systems meet consumer expectations of safety, quality and security is paramount to the success of e-health for Australia. To this end, the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA NEHTA National E-Health Transition Authority (Australia) ) has spent the past year interacting with stakeholders and understanding both technical and social requirements to advance the e-health agenda. Following on from an independent review conducted by the Boston Consulting Group late in 2008, NEHTA launched an Action Plan for Adoption Success (1) to further develop our collaboration and engagement with industry, the healthcare sector, consumers and the state, territory and federal governments. The Action Plan flows directly from NEHTA's acceptance of all the recommendations in the review and resulted in a multifaceted program of stakeholder engagement. This took the form of NEHTA-hosted events, seminars and consultation forums; external conferences and presentations; informal briefings; face-to-face meetings; and NEHTA produced publications.
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http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/334035/telstra_separation_bill_delayed_again/?eid=-6787
Telstra separation bill delayed again
Federal Government's efforts to force separation upon the telco will be sidelined due to "more pressing considerations"
- Darren Pauli (Computerworld)
- 27 January, 2010 12:53
The Federal Government's proposed legislation for the separation of Telstra (ASX:TLS) has been delayed again thanks to big ticket items to be discussed in the Senate hearings starting on February 2.
A spokesperson for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the senator plans to have the bill heard "this year" but could not make the next sitting in the first week of February because of "more pressing considerations".
The spokesperson would not provide any further details on the situation.
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Windows 7.0 upgrade closes off an upgrade option
- Fran Foo
- From: The Australian
- January 26, 2010
A LONG-TIME Microsoft user is furious at the loss of basic back-up functions after upgrading to Windows 7 Family Pack.
But Microsoft says users should visit its website and research products before buying.
Former Australian Computer Society president Philip Argy had PCs at home running various versions of Windows: XP Professional 32-bit, Vista Ultimate 64-bit, and Windows 7 Home Premium.
He had never had any problem manually backing up files to a Linksys external storage system, and late last year Microsoft began offering a "family version" of Windows 7, which allows upgrades to three PCs for the single price of about $280.
Mr Argy bought the family edition, on which the packaging states that all editions of Windows XP and Windows Vista can upgrade to Windows 7.
On the back of the box is a statement that automatic backup is possible for Professional and Ultimate versions, but not Home Premium. It says: "Recover your data easily with an automatic backup to your home or business network".
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http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/nasa-ends-effort-to-free-rover-spirit-20100127-mwt4.html
NASA ends effort to free rover Spirit
January 27, 2010 - 8:09AM
AFP
NASA says efforts to free the Spirit rover bogged down by Martian sand are over and instead the plucky robot is hunkering down to brave the harsh Mars winter.
"Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its long life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA headquarters in Washington.
"It looks like Spirit's current location on Mars will be its final resting place," he said on Tuesday
Earlier this month NASA, celebrated Spirit's bountiful, six-year stint on the Red Planet, much longer than the three months it was forecast to last.
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Pretty sad after such a great effort!
Enjoy!
David.
Article "GPs lack email for discharge summaries" is sorely misguided. Email should never be used to transmit patient information. It is not secure. There are many secure messaging products that can transmit the information (almost) directly into the GP desktop package. These should be the solution of choice at present.
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