A few little matters have come to my attention in the last few days.
First I noticed that we saw a Senate Estimates Hearing that did not really ask a single hard question.
All my ideas were clearly avoided - see here as well as the comments on the same blog.
Second it seems that the time being spent on e-Health is getting a bit shorter.
This most recent one was hardly 20 minutes where those before the election seemed to be well over 30 mins if not more.
Third it really seems that both political sides realise that they have ‘blood on their hands’ in terms of Labor having rather messed things up with the PCEHR and the present Government seemingly making a very considerable meal of working out what comes next. They both realise that e-Health has got to be as close as one could imagine to a shared political liability!
Of course it was the Howard Government that launched NEHTA which it has not to be said has also not covered itself with glory!
See this blog for coverage of this:
Lastly no one seems to have noticed two key NEHTA facts:
1. NEHTA was not at Senate Estimates at all - first time for the last couple of years.
2. NEHTA does not have a single job vacancy as of today.
See here:
Careers
We have roles for people who want to be challenged and inspired.
NEHTA is a dynamic company that draws together highly motivated people who are committed to getting the job done. We look for people who apply to their work a rigorous approach to analysis, design and evaluation, and who are keen to really make a difference.
NEHTA will handle any personal information that you submit as part of a job application in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988. This includes your CV and any other personal information that you submit to NEHTA via its website or by post, email, telephone or in person.
NEHTA may also collect personal information about you from your nominated referee(s). NEHTA will only use the personal information that it has collected in order to consider and facilitate your application for employment. If your application is not successful, NEHTA may keep your personal information on file and may use it to contact you about other employment opportunities that may be of interest to you.
If you wish to access or seek correction of the information that NEHTA holds about you, or you do not want NEHTA to keep your application on file, please contact careers@nehta.gov.au. For more information about NEHTA’s data handling practices including how you can make a privacy complaint and how NEHTA deals with such complaints, please view our privacy policy.
We have roles for people who want to be challenged and inspired.
No positions currently advertised.
Page source is here
To me this all points to the NEHTA being closed down looking rather more likely that not - but then I would say that! What do you think?
I have to say it would be very interesting to get the views of the experts who read here on just how successful NEHTA has been over time with the various foundation projects (IHI, SMD, NASH, SNOMED, AMT etc.) FWIW my feeling is that an objective score card would hardly be a glowing endorsement.
Separately I should just mention that we are having another round of ructions in the e-Health Standards space. Again this is an area where NEHTA and DoH have comprehensively failed in my view.
David.
Put the Wombles in charge.
ReplyDeleteFrom a business perspective, NEHTA would not be in a position to hire as there was no agreed funding until very recently and I cannot confirm if that is yet set in stone, would it require COAG sign off?
ReplyDeleteAs for standards that has been in decline for sometime, partly NEHTA/DOH a good percent can be blamed on AS themselves and blame should be shared with some who have created a self importance out so memebership and used it for their commercial gains, as for the wombles, you will probably find them running HL7 Australia