The following
articles appeared this morning and - as noted in the previous blog - the Revised
PCEHR Concept of Operations is being released today.
Nicola Roxon to unveil e-health blueprint
- Karen Dearne
- From: The Australian
- September 12, 2011
HEALTH
Minister Nicola Roxon will today unveil an updated blueprint for the nation's
$500 million electronic health records program.
"This
is a big step forward for e-health," she will tell guests at the opening
of a model health display on show in Parliament House this week.
"The
finalised Concept of Operations will be used by our infrastructure partners to
build the system, and allow Australians to sign up for a personally controlled e-health
record (PCEHR) from July next year."
Last
month, the government signed a $77m contract with an Accenture-led consortium
to build and test the national IT infrastructure before the end of June, to
meet the minister's political deadline.
The
Canberra roadshow is intended to demonstrate the power of e-health technologies
to improve patient care and support health reform measures.
"Within
a decade, our strategic broadband and e-health investments will be delivering
the full power of smart health technologies across Australia, helping people
live healthier lives," Ms Roxon says.
"It
will help us save lives and save money."
Ms
Roxon says more than 1.1 million individual healthcare identifiers are already
in use across Australia in the three sites leading the implementation of the
PCEHR program.
More here:
The second
and deeper coverage is here:
Issues still to be resolved on e-health records program
- Karen Dearne
- From: The Australian
- September 12, 2011
THE
revised concept of operations for the Gillard government's $500 million
e-health records program fleshes out some details but many of the ticklish
issues around funding, governance and medico liability remain "out of
scope".
Consultations
threw up concerns that as yet, there are no arrangements for long-term
management of the personally controlled e-health record (PCEHR) program and
related services, that there is no ongoing funding beyond its July 1 startup
date, and that there is no money on the table to compensate doctors for the
creation and maintenance of uploaded patient information.
Nor
has the question of funding for software and systems upgrades, and integration,
been addressed.
Also
out of scope are the crucial enabling laws and regulatory details - a separate
public consultation over a legal issues paper has closed, but the government is
yet to respond to the matters raised - including sanctions for disclosure of
sensitive material.
Nevertheless,
Health Minister Nicola Roxon will release the revamped blueprint in Canberra
today, where a model healthcare display has been set up in Parliament House to
showcase the power of new technologies in improving patient care and supporting
reform measures.
"This
is a big step forward for e-health," she will tell guests. "The
finalised concept will be used by our infrastructure partners to build the
system, and allow Australians to sign up for a PCEHR from July next year."
Last
month, the government sealed a $77m contract with an Accenture-led consortium
to build and test the national IT infrastructure before the end of June; the
same team is delivering Singapore's $146m electronic patient records system for
doctors caring for the nation's four million people.
But
Accenture's local project boss, Brad Cable, says Australia will not get a
"cookie cutter copy" of the Singaporean system, due to the different
approach demanded by the patient control aspects.
While
the latest document includes "refinements" to the original draft
following consultations, the overall design and operational concept are largely
unchanged.
The
PCEHR will be voluntary for both patients and medical providers, who will have
to opt-in to the system if they wish to participate; the personal record will
not replace doctors' own patient records; a national repository will hold a
basic shared health summary, some agreed uploaded documents, and patients' own
notes.
An
indexing system will allow document searches across "a distributed system
of public and private sector providers working in concert", with the
government insisting it is not creating a "single government store of
personal health information".
Essentially,
the system will provide a document viewing service, which patients and medical
professionals can access through separate web portals.
The
government has decided to tighten up on registration and online authentication
processes through the creation of a new proof of record ownership service.
Lots more here:
I received
the revised copy yesterday and this coverage is spot on. Essentially there has
been no substantive change from the Draft ConOps that was delivered in April.
A missed
opportunity and really a disaster for Australian e-Health in my view. The
number of issues which remain unresolved is very large and each is very
important, suggesting to me they don’t know what they are doing.
David.
2 comments:
"Essentially there has been no substantive change from the Draft ConOps that was delivered in April."
As I have so often stated on this blog and it needs to be repeated here once again:
The prime purpose in holding consultation sessions and calling for submissions is to make everyone feel they have been involved in the development cycle.
The secondary role is to give the developers the option of including some ideas if they understand them, if they think it worth their while, and if it is not too onerous for them.
But first and foremost to provide comfort to all that what they are getting is the result of their input.
A great big confidence trick and an enormous waste of everyone's time, money and resources leading, as in the UK, to the big-bang=big-crash approach and a waste of billions of pounds / dollars.
They are doing to eHealth what the financial gurus have done for banking in the last decade. Its all spin and unrealistic promises, with a large dose of PR money to give it some gloss.
Under the hood however its a Datsun 120Y with a few 100,000 miles on the clock. The safety and performance characteristics will probably be similar to that.
Like any Ponzi Scheme however it will end in tears, once all the fools are signed up. This is really reckless spending in a time of a global recession and great uncertainty. The return on this half a billion will be negative, what a waste.
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