The Senate Estimates Committee for Community Services has just spent 20 minutes on e-Health.
The questions were interesting and it is clear that Senator Boyce is taking a close interest in NEHTA and DoHA in this domain.
The main focus was on:
1. How come consumers had been so uninvolved in the PCEHR program until very recently?
2. Just why is it that NEHTA's risk assessment for the HI Service is secret?
3. Just who else is actually doing a PCEHR as we are - the answer was really no-one but the bureaucrat obfuscated a good deal.
4. The HealthSMART Clinical Risk assessment. We got the admission that it was never intended that the IHI be used as a sole identifier - news to some I am sure.
5. Apparent overseas junkets from NEHTA senior execs on study tours.
Not a bad session except for the Dorothy Dixers from Senator Furner where he and the DoHA staff confirmed they had no idea what level of impact might be possible from e-Health and assumed therefore the problem would be 100% solved - which is nonsense! (Medication Systems will reduce but not totally eliminate error etc.)
Full discussion when I have a transcript.
David.
2 comments:
I have a question from a Doc so I thought I would post it here.
He is concerned that access to partial records, when you are not sure what is missing is a far from ideal situation.
Now acknowledging that people can also lie about their medical history. is it a valid concern to say that not knowing what you do not know - in itself represents a risk?
This is an issue as is the accuracy, provenance and timeliness of any information held in a shared record.
It is these sort of issues that have made clinicians a bit wary - to say the least.
The bottom line is that if you are treating someone you should always confirm critical information from the patient if that is possible. If not (say conscious)then you may have to go with anything you have. This is not all that common of course.
David.
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