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."

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Live Blog - Senate Estimates June 2 2015 - Much Delayed Start On E-Health.

Began 12:15pm and Lunch @ 12:25pm
Paul Madden taking most questions - Peter Fleming gets involved after lunch.
Labor Senator trying To Protect Baby! (Senator Moore) - No questions from Senator Di Natale
Current State Of Play:
2, 242,823 Registered Individuals. (No mention of record usage etc,)
No Target for Registrations  since mid 2013 - new since last Estimates not known
Approximately 10,000 records per week have been created.
Promotion - little recently - now have funds to proceed for 3 years will be doing more
Outcomes of PCEHR Review announced in Budget with funding announced of $485M over 3 years
What has been happening before funding was given?
The Dept. nave been maintaining looking for errors etc. etc. since began.
Have a workforce that monitors all the functions security etc..
Review - recommended increased participation so we are to have trials of what to do.
Decision has been to trial opt-out at 2-5 sites.
Form of trials - 2-5 sites - have not chosen yet - will be consulting on locations as well as education of GPs and consumers and other providers etc.
Plan to trial with about 1 million being opted in.
Terms of trial not determined - do not have evaluation plan as yet - still to be developed.
Back @ 13:25pm
Looking at minimum 2 and maximum of  5 trial sites.
Planned Process.
By September 2015 sites selected  and education,  communications and training for providers and consumers to be planned and underway.
Actual trials to start early 2016.
Option will to opt out will be open for a few weeks following notification of populace
Then all those who have not opted out will have a record created will have six weeks to set their security on an empty record.
Two weeks later load data with aim for trial sites to be live July 2016.
Not clear how long the actual operational trail will last, and when evaluation will be done and what will be evaluated.
Site Selection for Pilots - Target areas of innovation and use of technology - and GPs using technology.
If people decide to opt out later after - record will be deleted.
Still do not have trial design. Due a few weeks and after more consultation.
Funding.
$140M was provided for 2014-2015 for ops
3 years funding of operation and re-development takes to 18/19 - $427M for this
Program with come back in 2017 to Government with trail results, recommendations and request more ongoing funding.
Operational funding grows as system use grows. (also as more enhancements are done etc.).
There is a marginal increase in funding and confidence for 3 years.
Hospital Access
399 Public Hospitals - Private Sector has been asked to link to HI and then PCEHR.
Sen McLucas - NT thinks their system is better than PCEHR - they are in transition from their older record that they like. Not sure they have enough connectivity in remote areas. (Consent needed for both NT and PCEHR so presently a bit messy) (NT docs use both records).
Eventually all will be switched to PCEHR.
Doctors are still not convinced re PCEHR and they see it as a chicken and egg - until lots are using the record not much value.
Incentives
There are plans for some incentives to get more complex patients with a shared record - this will cost - due to start next year - did not hear anything about funding this.
Plan is to have on-line and physical face to face training - to start late 2015 to get ready for incentives on 2016.
In passing was noted that 1100 pharmacies are registered for PCEHR (that is about 1 in 5).
Opt - In Trials (rest of country)
Still thinking how best to foster usage while trials run etc.
Will run trials in opt-in mode - ask PHNs to try and encourage registration - rather than clipboard and assisted as it was pretty costly.
Assisted Registration was costing $38 per person (so to do population would cost $760M so not going to happen).
Trial Cost
Trials are to cost about $50M. (Operations and enhancements $427M)
End @13:54
Comment - overall seem to be making it up as they go along and just thrilled to have all this money to spend! Note also just no comment or information on just how much usage the system is seeing in terms for records accessed etc.
E&OE!
David.

3 comments:

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

All this action and no strategy.

Just wondering..... Have they published:
a) the objectives for the trials? (as opposed to some vague intentions)
b) success criteria?

If they haven't then it's a fishing expedition - they are hoping they will learn something, but they don't know what.

Apart from the community reaction to opt-out.

What's likely to happen is that the adverse reactions won't happen until it starts to impact everyone, not just some small community (where the locals go to local health providers) away from the major population centres.

Karen Dearne said...

Yeh, they've spent the past two years sitting on bums and scratching heads, nothing useful going on... Why should we expect proper planning and a coherent strategy now when they've never managed anything like that in the past?

Why would we expect the same bunch of woodenheads to come up with new ideas and new approaches? The PCEHR static document model was a dinosaur when it was first mooted.

Now? Why would anyone waste more money on a totally failed concept? Oh, to protect their well-heeled backsides I guess; wouldn't be good on the CV so we'll just keep on pretending, and pocketing all that lovely taxpayer's lolly.

David, spot on description of Claire Moore's behaviour. Both parties have their horribly dirty paws all over this one, and can't admit their errors of judgment/lack of financial stewardship and inability to manage the project.

So in grand style, we're all still pretending the emperor's new clothes fit just fine... Pity about the untidy dangly bits


Anonymous said...

Mark my words carefully - this huge waste of public monies is going to bite the Prime Minister big time on his backside. The buck stops with him.