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."

Sunday, March 31, 2013

A Very Kind Soul Is Doing All The Work For Me. Great Stuff To Browse On A Long Weekend!

A colleague pointed out this blog post last week.

eHealth records: blessing or burden? (slideshow)

In this slide show I have tried to explain the complexity of the Australian eHealth record (or PCEHR) and why it is not necessarily an improvement for health professionals. Feel free to use, download and/or share this presentation.
The direct link to the blog post is here:
http://www.panaceum.com.au/ehealth-records-blessing-or-burden-slideshow/

I have embedded a direct link as the blog indicates Dr Kruys is keen to have the presentation shared.

Reading through the 19 well considered slides all I can say is I wish I had put so clearly on the blog such a useful summary of all that is wrong and ill-considered with the PCEHR.
To me the advantages cited on Slide 3 are totally outweighed the cons on slide 4.
The presentation is available for review and download from the link above.
Many thanks Dr Kruys for a quality presentation that makes it clear just how far the Government has to go to make this PCEHR even slightly useful, safe, clinically acceptable, trustworthy and suitable for adoption.
There are not enough voices warning about all the issues covered here! I suspect Dr Kruys comes down pretty firmly on the burden side as far as the PCEHR is concerned.
David.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

David,

Fortunately, even though I'm a rusted-on ALP voter, I think September's elections will resolve these problems for us. Pity about the money spent, though I doubt NEHTA/DoHA would have spent it more wisely in other circumstances.

Anonymous said...

What a great summary, it says it all from the end user stakeholders.

Also a rusted on ALP voter, but I am dissappointed by:

1. The sheer and obvious lack of stakeholder engagement, quality and validation in general. Witness the uptake and general reaction.

2. The ongoing attempts to support this big bang, low integrity, under-utilised system by spending large amounts of money on teams to "register" people in an attempt to justify the now clearly ludicrous claims made before wasting this money.

3. Politically motivated "attacks" on 457 visas for skilled people who want to work here, whilst calmly allowing DOHA to export local opportunity and let a big bang $100m tender to a company using cheap overseas labor. All done whilst a senior officer of Nehta brags about $1m a day being "spent" at the same time as insulting the local stakeholders. Duplicity at its finest!

There are surely many better ways to get value for money for the taxpayer than wasting large sums on smooth talking consulting firms with contracts let by bureaucrats who manifestly did not do the most basic diligence on this business case! Who can really say there is something useful in all of this that could not have been obtained for a fraction of the effort?

Unfortunately it will be the ALP that stands accountable for this, nice one Nicola, perhaps they will learn one day!

Paul Fitzgerald said...

Interesting, I was talking to an acquaintance who is a GP on the weekend. I asked if she is busy signing up patients for the PCEHR. She said that their 13 doctor practice decided that until it was usable and useful, they would not be signing up patients. She said that if one of her patients is going travelling (grey nomad style), she simply prints the summary record and gives them the piece of paper with the relevant information about meds and conditions. Guess that doesn't cost a billion dollars either.

Anonymous said...

IMHO, the real failure is with senior public servants. They are the ones advising the pollies, they are the ones who keep failing (think Australia Card, Access Card etc, etc)

It's about time Ms Jane Halton was shown the door and given a big shove though it. It won't happen before the election, but with a bit of luck it will happen very shortly afterwards - whoever wins.

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

@Paul

An excellent example of solving a specific problem. It works much better than trying to build a very expensive eHealth solution to an unknown set of problems.

Terry Hannan said...

1. Slides are superb sumamrisising what soem of us ahve been sating for ages.
2. First Anomymous-more than disappointing and unrealistic appraisal.
3. Paul Fitzgerald-good points. All my patients have a copy of their Summary Patient Record. They can have a printed copy if no email but have an e-copy if they have email(or their authorised carer). They have full access to me via emaiy. They can update their record [all communications are stored IN the record]. I am able to access the record safely from any internet connection in the world. The patients can communicate with me via the internet with me rgardless of where I am in the world.
4. All my new hospital admissions have their summary record compiled from my home (access to labs and XRays) so that when I and my Team arrive at the hospital the next day - particularly for morning handover- the team have the sumamry record on their phones.

Anonymous said...

@Terry Hannan: You are able to securely access the record from anywhere in the world? How exactly, and how do the security measures that you have in place compare to those on the PCEHR?