This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.
The question was:
Do You Believe The NEHTA Board Understands What NEHTA is Doing and How Well It is Going?
The answers were as follows:
Perfectly
- 5 (13%)
Partly
- 3 (8%)
Not Really
- 7 (18%)
They Are Clueless
- 22 (59%)
Well that is seems pretty clear with 75% thinking the Board is pretty clueless about what is actually going on!
Votes : 37
Again, many thanks to those that voted!
David.
As for your next poll "Would You Prefer NEHTA Chose Practical Quicker Implementable Simplicity Over Trying For Slower Solution Perfection?"
ReplyDeleteI have to say it is very difficult to log a response as the question has so many connotations.
I would prefer NEHTA to identify a priority solution and fund a small cohort of developers to work together collaboratively to develop and deploy the solution in their customer base with the customers' costs also being funded by NEHTA.
Sorry,
ReplyDeleteSuggest a better way to ask about the issue and I will use it!
David.
BTW - any suggestions for questions / surveys are more than welcome!
D.
Actually I think that this current question is very relevant - especially when considering that the current NEHTA policy seems to be to seek an actual perfect solution! It is sad that NEHTA has taken this approach because fundamentally there is not going to be a perfect solution! The health industry is much too dynamic and undergoing too much ongoing change for there to to be 'a solution'.
ReplyDeleteFrom a fundamental approach the role of NEHTA should have been to provide oversight in collating, documenting, sharing and nuturing existing practical solutions and providing direction for the ongoing development of IT in the health arena. Considering the size and varied agencies and agendas this would have much better made us of existing expertise and change management allready occuring in the health industry. Sadly this philosophy does not seem to be palatable for political expediency! So instead we are harnessed with a burgeoning bureacracy completely divorced from the actual workplace!
I don't think Nehta should fund software development as such and they should not do standards development either. There is ample evidence that they have failed or are failing at both those tasks.
ReplyDeleteThey should be involved in identifying why existing solutions and standards are not being adopted and any weakness in them. This would get them into the compliance arena.
Government building software does not have a good track record and the failure of the well funded UK attempts should be warning enough. They need to identify the problems and look at what carrots or sticks are required, but not fund development. Only testable results should be considered for any carrots and those carrots should be placed in the hands of the users in provide incentives for compliance with standards. Anything that is not based on consensus standards is likely to distort the market, like it has been doing in the PCEHR program. The area is complex enough that its easy to burn billions for no return and that's exactly what we have been doing for 10 years. It's time to stop this nonsense and accept that the only way forward is with consensus standards done well in a tested manner.
Jon Patrick has been astute enough to see this. Innovation can happen around the edges, but we need standards and mandatory compliance at the centre if we want interoperability. The fact that the web is built on tcp/ip, http, html and javascript is a good example of this model. Those standards are quite simple and we now have good compliance in browsers (after 10 years) and the web has taken off. Please can we have someone with a deep understanding of Health, eHealth standards and software development at the helm!! At the moment we are heading full steam ahead at the rocks. eHealth is not like setting up a ATM network.
What, because the internet grew up on standards with mandatory compliance? And because the way that horizontal platforms grow is the way that vertical markets grow?
ReplyDeleteThe internet stalled when competition resulted in non compliant extensions. Interoperability is a horizontal platform and innovation can occur in the vertical markets. There are 2 markets, but interoperability is the horizontal one. In the case of the web standards the drivers for the compliance in the web world were not mandatory compliance, but we are not seeing the same move to standards in the eHealth world and that is a place for governance to step in.
ReplyDelete