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, February 27, 2013

Can This Be Seen As Acceptable In Any Way? Can’t See How.

Checked this link today.

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.
What does the Standards Catalogue provide?
  • advice on when and where the use of a standard is appropriate.
  • can be navigated via  content classifications
  • links to both de facto and de jure standards from national and international standards bodies including proprietary, business, and more openly developed standards.
Open Standards
We support the adoption of open standards where appropriate. These standards should require no royalty payments, be openly published, allow extension, promote reusability, and reduce the risk of technical lock-in and high switching costs. However, where open standards are not appropriate due to significant market or technical issues, we will adopt the standards deemed most fit-for-purpose, relevant and useful to the community.
Importance of Standards
Standards are relevant to all areas of our work, and provide rigour as well as a means of validation with external expert groups. The lack of clear standards makes it difficult for vendors to develop software applications that can support a broad range of communication within the health community. Vendors face developing their own solutions and accepting the risk of industry adopting a different approach. Where widely supported standards are available to vendors, the lack of agreement at a national level about their use can preclude their adoption.
Standards also benefit those who purchase and implement health software applications. Knowing which software products conform to agreed standards can greatly simplify the purchasing process, and increase purchaser confidence that the selected product will be fit-for-purpose. Standards also offer the potential to avoid vendor 'lock-in'.
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
----- End Extract.
How can this be?
“The PCEHR Standards Catalogue currently being updated and will be available soon.”
Why was this not available 9+ months ago? Who is responsible for this total delivery failure and why are we all paying their salaries?
This page has been saying the same over at least a year. Just why would that be?
Just nonsense.
Co-incidentally this week we also have seen this.

Lack of e-health standards “unacceptable”

THE absence of compulsory basic standards for electronic health records in general practice is an “unacceptable” situation and its resolution is very much overdue, according to two experts involved in collecting GP data.
In an editorial in this week’s MJA, two senior members of the Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health (BEACH) program, which collects information about clinical activities in general practice, have called for the urgent development of “nationally agreed standards for the electronic health record (EHR)”. (1)
“We now have a variety of EHR systems with inconsistent structures, data elements and terminologies”, Associate Professor Helena Britt and Associate Professor Graeme Miller, director and medical director of the Family Medicine Research Centre, wrote.
They listed three negative effects caused by the absence of compulsory basic standards.
“First, it makes it extremely difficult to transfer patient data to other general practices and health providers”, they wrote.
“Second, it makes it hard for practices to change to a different EHR system because transfer of patient data to a new system, with different data structures and coding systems, is unreliable.
“Last, it makes it impossible to obtain reliable national information about the care provided to individuals and the population through passive data collection from GPs’ computers.”
Professor Britt and Professor Miller said this was “unacceptable when in 2011–2012 there were 125 million GP services provided at a cost to government of about $5 billion”.
However, some GPs involved in health informatics say that change is happening.
Dr Chris Mitchell, a GP in northern NSW, told MJA InSight that significant steps had been taken to use EHRs to improve patient care.
Lots more here:
It is getting hard to believe, with all this, that the Health IT Standards setting processes in Australia are presently being properly managed and delivered.
David.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

CYA patent infringement

Anonymous said...

Pray tell - what else can they say?

Haikerwal and Mitchell are paid to say just that ... Chris Mitchell, a GP in northern NSW, told MJA InSight that significant steps had been taken to use EHRs to improve patient care.

Anonymous said...

It is also unacceptable that we don't have a cure for cancer, but wishing something does not make it happen. We have witnessed the debarkle of government trying to invent standards. We need an environment where people are doing R&D to make it happen, but currently NEHTA has sucked all the oxygen out of ehealth research by making sure they are the only game in town. This has to stop.

Anonymous said...

"This has to stop."

But wishing something does not make it happen....

Dr David G More MB PhD said...

However, you have to identify the problem before it can addressed.

David.

Anonymous said...

Codswallop - the problem has been identified, known and talked about for over 5 years - 5 years - think about that. As it hasn't been addressed in all that time it won't be addressed now. Think about that too.

Dr David G More MB PhD said...

And where have you been reading about it from your humble blogger for longer than that even!

Suggestions on fixes welcome. Assassinations are not an option!

David.

Anonymous said...

Dear David - Codswallop was not a criticism of you or your blogspot - quite the opposite.

Yes you have been banging on about it for a very long time.

Unfortunately and ever so sadly as it hasn't been addressed in all that time I doubt that it will be addressed now. It has gone too far and it is too politically embarrassing now to do anything about it except pretend all is OK and press on to oblivion.

Anonymous said...

The ePIP requires the software to have the functionality for coding not the enforcement of coding. Big difference when it comes to usefulness for analysis. Still waiting for useful maps for all the various coding systems used, but the work is ongoing and needs time/funding to improve.
--- Tim C