The Truth From The MSIA on A Recent Post at E-Healthcentral

Geoffrey Sayer July 27, 2010 at 10:08 pm

The intention is that Health Identifiers are to make a real difference and is a population wide initiative that will under pin the eHealth agenda – yet a best guess it that we will be years away from levels of 95% plus coverage and use of HI in all health communication exchanges – the level we will need to get the desired benefits that will reduce the negative consequences of miss-identification. For those familiar with population health the desired coverage levels of HIs in exchanges is like the concept of herd immunity in vaccine use.

Charles as a learned Journalist (you seem to have the pedigree) you would know that things in quotations are supposed to be direct quotations. You would also know that many journalists, reporters and editors tend to add to the text to make the quotations tell the story. You will note that debarcle is not in quotes. To be fair though for the report in the Australian I will stand by my quotes in quotation marks in the story.

While you have a perchance to the use of unnamed sources – but reliable one’s you assure us – who know the real story – I only have my experiences to go by; I use evidence and facts; I use my name; I don’t rely on unnamed MSIA spokes people; I have spoken publicly; I invite criticism of the arguments in these forums; and I have sat in many NEHTA engagement sessions, read documents and made submissions.

Maybe I have missed something but the following describes the current status for the HI Service:
1. The HI Patient identifiers have been populated in the Medicare database.
2. Patient identifiers can be accessed by telephone to Medicare – less than 100 have been requested. No B2B or Health Provider Online Services (HPOS) channels are yet available for electronic access.
3. Population of the Provider Identifiers (HPI-I) has been delayed due to delays at APRA – it is now likely that this data will not be loaded until at least mid-August. Timeline has slipped.
4. Forms to register for a Health organisational identifier are available from the Medicare web site but no applications have been received.
5. The next release of the service is on track for September but will not include support for software vendors to be able to access the live service as negotiated by MSIA and included in the final legislation and regulations. These additional facilities are still being specified by NeHTA. Documentation for transitional arrangements is being completed by NeHTA.
6. The Medicare developer’s environment for HI has been deployed but the test cases required for Notice of Integration (NOI) testing have not yet been finalised. They will be supplied for review to MSIA “in the near future” once they have been signed off by NeHTA – this has been promised for 2 months.
7. Medicare has only recently supplied a revised copy of the Developer agreement for HI which incorporates some of the requested changes as per the principles agreed at the MSIA CEO’s forum. However, it is not able to be shared that with the vendor community until it is approved by the Medicare executive. It still does not address a number of significant issues which will require further negotiation with DoHA, so it is still some way from being a document that MSIA could recommend anyone signing. However, due to the delays, we will be discussing with Medicare possible interim arrangements for access to the HI developer environment.
8. The operating agreement between Medicare and NeHTA has not yet been signed.
9. NeHTA have completed a safety evaluation of the HI service but it will not be released – so we can’t be sure what safety issues are identified and what will be dealt with.
10. NeHTA hope to have a conformance/compliance/accreditation plan for HI available by end of November. It is a plan not a working CCA.
11. NeHTA hope to have meetings with relevant primary care stakeholders sometime in the next 6 weeks to discuss starting to prepare a sector HI implementation plan. They have not yet contacted the relevant stakeholders.
12. The National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) has not yet been approved by the NeHTA Board and Medicare certificates will be used to access the service in the Developer environment. This may require issue of new PKI certificates depending on the functions being implemented.

So in response to your commentary:
“Anyone who knows anything at all about the system would be aware that both those claims are complete balderdash.”

Not sure who is spinning the crap Charles – but then I am not sponsored for my commentary – a cheap shot I know – on par with your “usual headline-seekers” discrediting attempt.

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Posted at Geoffrey Sayers request.

Go here for the original post and responses:

http://www.ehealthcentral.com.au/2010/07/alarums-and-diversions/#comments

David.