Some Missing Components in Australian E-Health Governance Reviewed But Others Are Also Needed.

The following report was announced a few days ago.

Accenture Finds Information Governance Framework Needed to Guide E-Health Investments and Strategy

RESTON, Va., Aug 12, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- According to a new report from Accenture, healthcare organizations planning large investments in e-health solutions face challenges in five interrelated disciplines of information governance -- data privacy, confidentiality, security, quality and integrity.

The report, Information Governance: The Foundation for Effective e-Health, details and explores specific targets for the five disciplines and provides an actionable framework that healthcare organizations, such as care providers, insurers, and public health organizations can use to perform a high-level assessment of their current information management situation, challenges and opportunities. The objective is to ensure investments in e-health are supporting strategic goals of increasing efficiency and reducing costs, reducing errors, and improving patient outcomes. The target areas for evaluation explained in the report are:

Data Privacy

-- Patient consent models and mechanisms

-- Patient-provider relationship-based access controls

-- Patient access controls

-- Effective data security and data handling policies

Data Confidentiality

-- Role-based access control models

-- Patient and provider record sealing

-- Identification and authentication

-- Anonymization and pseudonymization

Data Security

-- Message integrity and communications security

-- Event audit and alerting

-- IT security audit

-- Network integrity

Data Quality

-- Error correction

-- Data validation

-- System and interface certification

-- Standards-driven architecture

Data Integrity

-- Code integrity

-- System hardening

-- Interoperability governance

-- Standards-driven architecture and standards management

The new report draws heavily on Accenture's experience supporting health care organizations' efforts to transform administrative and clinical systems, capture and manage data, develop evidence-based insights, and connect fragmented health care systems.

"Health care organizations are making unprecedented investments in e-health systems, and this new framework speaks to the practical but rather complex implementation challenge, namely to ensure the investments are successful," said Mark Knickrehm, global managing director of Accenture's health care practice. "From working on e-health implementations around the world, we have built and are sharing this framework to help organizations address data privacy concerns, ensure compliance with standards and regulations, maximize the value of electronic health record systems, and support physician adoption."

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 190,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world's most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$21.58 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2009. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

SOURCE: Accenture

The release is found here:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/accenture-finds-information-governance-framework-needed-to-guide-e-health-investments-and-strategy-2010-08-12?reflink=MW_news_stmp

The full report is downloadable from here:

http://www.accenture.com/NR/rdonlyres/E4CE4D61-5C50-475F-9BC8-3185402AA7A8/0/Accenture_100473_InfoGovPoV_Final.pdf

This seems to me to be a very useful document that provides a good way of thinking about a range of critically important issues. Within its scope the report provides a very useful framework to consider the matters included.

What is missing in the document – and what I see as equally important for a successful implementation of e-Health – is a clear statement of the importance of parallel organisational governance and leadership. I have to say that as far as Australia is concerned we have serious gaps in both areas and hence I think this document is makes a valuable contribution.

Well worth a download!

David.