Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Standards for The PCEHR is a Looking Like A Mess. This Is Just Really Just Hopeless.

This appeared a few days ago

Ceasefire over e-health standards

James Hutchinson

NEHTA standards head made redundant.

The Department of Health and Ageing has agreed to resume the funding required to develop the technical standards that underpin its $466.7 million personally controlled electronic health record initiative.
The department had reportedly cut funding to an e-health standards development program by Standards Australia over the current financial year.
Negotiations around funding for Standards Australia's work continued well into August. A spokesman for the national body said an agreement had since been reached.
"The priorities of standards-related work relating to the PCEHR will be determined in the near future," the spokesman said.
The Department of Health and Ageing was contacted for comment but did not reply at time of publication.
The department this week released its revised concept of operations for the e-health record as the latest in a number of steps towards its ambitious goal for launch of the records on July 1 next year.
"We don't apologise for being impatient for success because we know how beneficial the e-health revolution will be for patient care," health minister Nicola Roxon said upon releasing the revised document on Monday.
According to a program plan published in March, Standards Australia planned to develop at least 26 standards with funding from the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), a body close to the department.
NEHTA focuses on 'engagement' for standards
Government-driven standards development work also faced another potential setback after NEHTA made its standards manager, Tina Connell-Clark, redundant in an internal restructure last Friday.
In an internal email sighted by iTnews, head of architecture Dave Bunker announced the departure of Connell-Clark, who had led standards work at the organisation from 2008.
Lots more here:
With all this I thought I would check just where NEHTA’s Standards Catalogue was up to. As of a day or so ago we have:

Standards Catalogue

The National E-Health Standards Catalogue (Standards Catalogue) consists of a collection of standards and specifications that are essential guidance for those who develop, sell, support, buy and implement e-health software in Australia. The catalogue provides a list of the standards recommended by, and specifications sourced or developed by, NEHTA, and is updated regularly.
......
The PCEHR Standards Catalogue currently being updated and will be available soon.
For any inquiries regarding Standards, please contact us at standards@nehta.gov.au
It is now known that Direkt Consulting gave NEHTA a PCEHR Program Standards Review on the 12th of May (Version 1.1) and that NEHTA produced a Draft PCEHR Standards Plan for Review (V0.2) on 16 May.
This is meant to produce a set of Product Work Plans that will have material available as needed.
It is of note that the Direkt Report says there are 37 New Standards / Specification needed with 7 needing update and only 17 needing no work.
The loss of the NEHTA Standards Manager and the funding hiatus caused by DoHA (which was only sorted a few days ago) must have left things in something of a mess - to say the least.
Really it seems clear actual execution of any real activity is just not a strong suit for this mob!
David.

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