I was alerted to this a day or so ago.
AIIA Healthcare Briefing
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Sydney
“More eHealth developments – Personally controlled electronic health records”
At this Briefing, you will have the opportunity to be briefed on the roll-out of personally controlled electronic health records (PCEHR) by the two people driving the policy and implementation.
Our keynote speakers are Ms Fionna Granger, First Assistant Secretary, eHealth Division, Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, and Andrew Howard, Head of Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record, NEHTA.
PCEHR records will become available to individual Australians from July 2012 and will be a major achievement of the Australian governments’ ehealth initiatives.
PCEHR records will build on the foundation laid by the introduction of individual and provider health care identities, SNOMED clinical terminologies, and secure messaging services through the national authentication service for health.
For patients and health providers, PCEHRs will bring key health information such as patient demographics, allergies and adverse reactions, medicines, medical history and immunisations from a number of different systems together and present it in a single view.
The PCEHR has already been rolled out into first wave sites, including Hunter Urban GP Access, GP Partners Brisbane, and Melbourne East GP Network. Soon to be announced, a second wave of early adopters will include the consortium lead, representatives from clinicians, consumers, hospitals and pharmacies.
Our briefing moderator, Andrew James will lead our discussions on what companies need to be doing to be business ready to take advantage of the e-health developments.
Please come along to listen, ask questions, and make suggestions.
AIIA is supporting NEHTA in the introduction of better ways of electronically collecting and securely exchanging health information in Australian healthcare.
Details
When: Tuesday 29 March 2011
When: 0800 - 0930
Where: Telstra Experience Centre, Level 4, 400 George St, Sydney
Cost: complimentary
Online registration: Click to register http://www.aiia.com.au/events/event_details.asp?id=149766
About AIIA Healthcare Network
Australia’s healthcare sector provides key commercial opportunities to Asia’s member companies, and AIIA seeks to assist our member companies to grow in this marketplace. Our AIIA Healthcare Briefings typically cover sector developments: business issues, drivers and constraints, buyer identification, and sector research.
Designed for senior ICT executives, healthcare account managers, commercial and government account and sales leaders and managers, healthcare business development managers, healthcare business analysts, and consultants. Our Briefings are a great opportunity to catch up with colleagues and to meet new colleagues in the industry.
Sponsored by NEHTA and Telstra
NEHTA is the lead organisation supporting the national vision for eHealth in Australia. NEHTA’s role as managing agent on behalf of the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) is to deliver the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) work program for the Australian health community.
Telstra is a strong supporter of the AIIA Healthcare Briefings and has kindly provided its Telstra Experience Centre venue. Telstra has Health and Aged Care Industry solutions for patient, medical professional and health administration services.
Further information
AIIA Healthcare Policy: Michel Hedley, AIIA Policy Manager 0417695 616 or m.hedley@aiia.com.au
AIIA Healthcare Network: Luli Adeyemo, AIIA Event Manager, luli@bestcasescenario.com.au
----- End Announcement.
I have to say I am a little startled to hear that “The PCEHR has already been rolled out into first wave sites, including Hunter Urban GP Access, GP Partners Brisbane, and Melbourne East GP Network.”
I had thought they we still working on it - well what do you know?
Sounds like a fun session for those who can make it!
David.
16 comments:
'Why is ‘IT’ all so hard in Pathology?' by Robert Flanagan, at Pulse+IT http://bit.ly/h5uZSt is well worth considering and is very pertinent to EHR, PC or otherwise.
In the context state of flux, laboratory IT may need a standing forum of its own.
Ross Anderson's paper http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2011/03/24/can-we-fix-federated-authentication/ may bear on the PCEHR.
I think you will see that if you blow all of the smoke away from the Wave 1 Lead Implementation sites that they have spent $4M each rebranding the HealthConnect funded DSTC Shared Electronic Health Record (SEHR) as a PCEHR and hoping that nobody will have noticed the difference.
Hence the lack of transparency about what the Wave 1 sites are actually doing with our taxpayers money and the ridiculous fact that there was not a formal RFT process for the funding.
Something stinks in here!
I have a good nose and it doesn't stink to me. It seems like a very clever strategy. Surely you would agree that DOHA has every right to want to see a Return on its Investment ROI in GP Partners.
If the system is working well up there in Brisbane among lots of doctors connecting and exchanging information between themselves and the local hospitals then it makes sense to see it mover further afield to give it some added momentum and critical mass.
For heavens sake it is hard enough to get something working without getting into a sweat and all lathered up because of an attempt to short circuit another 12 months delay by circumventing the formal RFT process for funding so DOHA can get something moving. Particularly if DOHA and GP Partners had already qualified a couple of suitable candidates prepared to implement the GP Partners system in VIC and NSW.
I mean really, NEHTA must be over the moon to see the SEHR now finally getting traction beyond the Tower of Babel.
Sure, there will be some short comings in the GP Partners solution. But with DOHA being prepared to extend it to other states with more users it logically follows DOHA is prepared to invest more money in it and with NEHTA's input drive it towards the emerging national standards that NEHTA is working on.
I can't really see what you are complaining about.
If the GP Partners system is serving the needs of its member practitioners why shouldn't it be distributed further afield and shared with other doctors in other Divisions - oops - in Medicare Locals.
It's as rank as the labor party is down south.
Typically non-transparent and infected with cronyism.
Enough said.
It's got nothing to do with the Labor party. It's all DOHA's work - they invested in the GP Partners solution and they want to see their investment bear fruit. The only way that can happen is if the solution multiplies and is implemented elsewhere. Quite understandable methinks.
There is an almost total lack of solid facts about just what this solution does or does not offer. It is impossible to form any opinion about the value or lack of value without this.
It is not delivering provider to provider communication in the usual sense of it and what standards does it use or not use? It could be a very proprietary solution that leads to lock in for all we know. Its level of functionality is a complete guess.
This is no way to run a national, government sponsored program. Transparency and standards use are paramount, and we are all in the dark. It is not good enough!
I agree - it is not good enough, and yes there is a total lack of solid facts about the solution. But that is not of any consequence to DOHA because they have only one objective and that is to make their Health Minister "look good" or rephrased - to make their Health Minister "think she is looking good".
The only way they can do that with ehealth is to be seen to be making progress and if they can demonstrate that their investment in GP Partners is now being deployed in two other states the Minister will breathe a sigh of relief and know or feel that at long last progress is being made and she is looking good. That is the way of politics and as far as the bureaucrats are concerned "that is good enough".
Didn't NEHTA originally form from a core of folks from DSTC??? I'm sure all this first wave stuff was arms length between the 2 organisations with no conflict of interest. Surely no concerns here about lack of transparency or potential at least for accusation of corruption.
And as there are no other examples of this type of stuff working elsewhere in Australia apart from GP partners, there was no need for government to have an open tender process. Nor was there any need for such a process to be instituted by DOHA to protect their minister from such political pain and accusation.
Give me a break!!!!! Stinks.
It will be interesting to see what the Wave 2 sites have to offer - if they are ever released. It would be good to see NEHTA/DOHA support some real world sites outside GP divisions!
It's a bit hard to imagine Nicola Roxon pouring resources into any more ehealth projects in NSW after Saturday's election result! Certainly not to 'buy' votes and which punters want to hear anything from a Labor politician in NSW - probably no-one for at least 12 months. The dust will take a long time to settle.
So not much joy ahead for ehealth in NSW for the immediate future. Why? Well first up she will want to know exactly where the NSW Government stands on health reform and what deals have to be cut to secure their support. Secondly, there is one hell of a lot of dry dead wood in the NSW health bureaucracy that needs to be put of the bonfire and replaced with fresh blooded managers more favourable to Liberal ideals.
In the meantime we can expect the Minister and her Department to try to extract more mileage from ehealth in the more settled environments elsewhere.
On the other hand, Roxon has an election in 2 years time, and that would be a very important moment to point to a few NSW sites that were up and running. NSW already is feeling 'left out' Federally, and the time to start fixing that is not 12 months out from an election.
"NSW already is feeling 'left out' Federally, and the time to start fixing that is" --- NOW.
I agree, strike while the iron's hot I say - get something into place and up and running without delay. This is more important than ever before given the rather disconcerting announcement from iSoft in today's Australian.
The sooner we can see some serious support for our home-bred Australian technology developers the better. Let's hope DOHA and NEHTA understand the powerful arguments for making every effort to strengthen our ehealth industry here at home.
Does anyone know what was presented or discussed at this session last Tuesday? I haven't found any subsequent reference to it on AIAA, NEHTA or DOHA websites. I suppose it DID take place? I guess it became overwhelmed by the announcement of the Wave 2 sites on the same day.
Keith,
There are some notes at www.ehealthcentral.com.au.
David.
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