The following appeared this morning.
Online health deadline looming
- by: Fran Foo
- From: The Australian
- June 11, 2013
THE Gillard government must sign up more than 9600 people a day to meet its target of 500,000 registrations by the end of the month for the $467 million eHealth record system.
It took 11 months to hit the first 250,000 as of June 5. This time the government will have about three weeks to repeat the feat.
The government had aimed for half a million Australians with a personally controlled eHealth record by next month.
The last-gasp dash comes as Health Department figures show that for the first time since July last year, the number of registrations far outnumber the number of logins, meaning most people were not using the opt-in system.
At a budget estimates hearing last week, Health Deputy Secretary Rosemary Huxtable said that on June 4, there were 10,000 registrations, the highest number in a single day.
"I think that we are still in sight of that 500,000 figure," Ms Huxtable said, when asked whether the target could be achieved.
"If we go back to 2012-13, there was certainly an expectation that we would, through the eHealth sites, have people at a stage of readiness and awareness at that point," she said.
"The reality is that the development, the underpinning work that we needed to do in a technical sense, was complex and took time.
Lots more here:
What the data shows is that right now the system is not being tested in terms of high usage - to say the least.
As I commented at the end of the article:
“Health IT expert David More said there was still "a very long way to go" before the PCEHR was clinically useful and improved healthcare outcomes.
"Overall, the statistics appear to suggest that usage of the PCEHR as opposed to the registrations, which are being stimulated and sponsored by paid recruiting agents, continues to be very low, probably involving only one or two visits at most by most of those registered with a good few never bothering after registering to log on," Dr More said.”
The good news here is that we are actually getting some information on just how much usage the system is getting. Well worth a careful read!
Here are the detailed figures:
2012
|
2013
| ||||||||||
Month
|
Jul
|
Aug
|
Sept
|
Oct
|
Nov
|
Dec
|
Jan
|
Feb
|
Mar
|
Apr
|
May
|
Consumer Registrations
|
4335
|
3843
|
3163
|
3532
|
6176
|
11193
|
17991
|
20262
|
24180
|
29415
|
84549
|
Consumer logins
|
4875
|
5449
|
5489
|
9195
|
8678
|
16556
|
22616
|
27650
|
26313
|
33059
|
38610
|
What do people think this means?
David.
5 comments:
April and May 2013 tell the story.
50,000 extra registrations in May due to a concerted effort to enrol (press gang or shanghai in the days of the tall masted Clipper ships) people on board.
Consumer logins of 38,000 indicate that most of the 50,000 extra enrollments have not bothered to log in and probably never will because, while they said ‘yes’ to the interviewer (who collected all their personal details and uploaded them) the individual has no interest in being proactive and logging in.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. A long time ago the government made a forecast of how many people they thought they would have enrolled and of course, as soon as it appears in print, that forecast becomes a target that people must meet regardless of the relevance or cost. Of course if you don't have a target or forecast, then you are accused of not planning properly.
Comparing registrations and logins is a meaningless exercise at the moment. Until more GPs get on board and start actively using the system there is not much point in logging in. Even once it is up and running, just because consumers aren't logging in, doesn't mean it isn't being used. The consumer might just be taking advantage of having a central loation where their GP and multiple specialists can place medical information. That may be enough for them and they don't worry about adding their own bits to the record or regularly checking it.
The naysayers (which this site seems to attract in droves, despite its claims to be balanced)should hold off with their crtiticism unti lthe system reaches a critical mass of users, GPs Specialists and hospitals to enable meaningful use. This is likely to take up to 12 months at the current rates. At that point if it isn't working you can say 'I told you so' but at the moment it is a bit premature.
How many of the registrations do you suppose are public servants?
I have been told Aspen Medical has made a number of passes around many of the Government Buildings in Canberra. So I suspect a few at least.
David.
6/11/2013 11:28:00 AM said ... The naysayers should hold off with their criticism until the system reaches a critical mass of users, GPs Specialists and hospitals to enable meaningful use. This is likely to take up to 12 months at the current rates.
It will take at least 5 years to reach critical mass using the current approach assuming the 'system' can be shown to be useful, reliable and working well. All indications are that the current approach will be just as ineffective in 5 years time as it is today.
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