NEHTA Releases Its 2013-2014 Annual Report. Will This Be The Penultimate Annual Report?

This appeared last week.

NEHTA's Annual Report 2013-14 is now available

Created on Wednesday, 05 November 2014

NEHTA's Annual Report 2013-14 is now available and can be downloaded from here.

The National E-Health Transition Authority was established in 2005 by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) to help transform Australia’s health system by building the foundations for a national eHealth infrastructure.  

NEHTA is jointly funded by the Australian Government and all State and Territory Governments.

NEHTA's Annual and Financial Reports contain detailed information about its operations during the past financial year as well as an overview of its work programme.

ENDS
For media enquiries contact Alison Sweeney, Manager Media and Public Affairs on 02 8298 2669 / 0414 187 350 or send an email to media@nehta.gov.au

Here is the link:

http://www.nehta.gov.au/media-centre/nehta-publications/717-nehta-s-annual-report-2013-14-is-now-available

The report is the usual load of self-promoting nonsense with no useful statistics and a lot of statistics that are meaningless in terms of NEHTA having actually made a difference to the health sector.

What I found fun were these bits.

1. P25

“Clinical safety

All NEHTA products and services are rigorously reviewed prior to release to make sure they are safe, useful and fit for purpose – nothing is released unless the risk is as low as reasonably possible.

A continuous improvement process is in place to identify and quickly deal with any issues that arise in using the national eHealth record system and the Healthcare Identifiers Service.

NEHTA works closely with the Commonwealth Department of Health, the National Infrastructure Operator and the Department of Human Services to assess and monitor risk, and improve safety of the system.”

On a crucial topic like safety we see NEHTA being so vague it is just unbelievable. It is clearly seen as ‘best efforts’ issue as far as NEHTA is concerned. Not good enough in my view.

2.P38

“NEHTA’s long term objectives are:

NEHTA has provided the foundations for eHealth usage in Australia. Optimal usage of eHealth and the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) and creating a critical mass is dependent on building on these foundations and working with clinical groups and software vendors to achieve this.

Continued collaboration with stakeholders along with the implementation of medications management and chronic disease management programmes will help drive uptake of the PCEHR towards a ‘tipping point’ of use.

NEHTA’s work will need to be aligned with both the refreshed National eHealth Strategy and the Government’s response to the PCEHR Review recommendations.”

I wonder where comments on review of how well what NEHTA has delivered is working etc. I can find nothing other than some glossy vignettes to demonstrate all the money spent on NEHTA over the last decade has made a difference. I note they are still spending $50M p.a. on consultants.

3. P47

“Going Concern

NEHTA Ltd has funding arrangements with the Federal, State and Territory Governments of Australia until 30 June 2015. It is expected that further funding will be provided to continue the NEHTA work programme beyond the 12 months from the date of this report and as such the financial statements have been prepared on a going concern basis. Should the funding not continue there is material uncertainty as to whether the Company will continue as a going concern and therefore, whether the Company will realise its assets and extinguish its liabilities in the normal course of business and at the amounts stated in the financial report. Due to this uncertainty, NEHTA has set aside cash reserves that would be sufficient to extinguish any remaining liabilities that exist at the time, should further funding not be provided.”

Looks like NEHTA is contemplating its own demise.

4. P56

“e. In February 2013, NEHTA was provided with a press release in which MMRGlobal (MMR) asserted on behalf of its subsidiary MyMedicalRecords that NEHTA and the Australian Government appeared to be infringing two of MMR’s Australian patents and other intellectual property. At that time, NEHTA had not received any contact from MMR asserting an infringement and no claim of patent infringement has been pursued by MMR against NEHTA since the press release was issued in February 2013.

As a result of the assertions made in the press release, NEHTA undertook a thorough investigation of MMR’s Australian patents, which revealed that there was no, nor had there ever been, an infringement of MMR’s Australian patents by NEHTA. That has been communicated to MMR’s lawyers both in the United States and Australia by NEHTA’s solicitors.

At this time, the directors do not expect there to be any significant impact on the Company’s stated financial position as set out in the financial statements read with the associated explanatory notes, as a result of MMR’s assertions.”

Looks like NEHTA is happy MMR does not have a prayer!

All in all worth a browse to see just how much money has been spent for so little outcome.

David.