Here are a few I have come across the last week or so.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and a few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
General Comment
Quite an interesting week with Telstra active as well as DoH revealing just how superficial their plans are for the half a billion dollars they plan to spend over the next three years.
I see there are to be some cash incentives for use of the new PCEHR. I wonder where that money is coming from and how much is involved.
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eRx Script Exchange welcomes 6CPA eHealth funding
eRx Script Exchange has welcomed the continuation of funding for the electronic transfer of prescriptions in the newly signed Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement.
The new agreement includes $12.6 million for ETP funding in the 2015-2016 financial year. An additional spend of $48.3 million has been set aside for ETP and eHealth in the years following, subject to a cost effectiveness study in 2016.
“This is good news for health users and health professionals,” says Paul Naismith, pharmacist and CEO of the Fred IT Group.
“Electronic prescribing has become a vital part of the eHealth backbone, facilitating better communication between health professionals, more efficient work practices, and improved patient safety.”
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Streamlining Australia’s EPR Roadmap with Lessons from the UK & US
By Rebecca Keiller June 4, 2015
Moving from paper-based systems to streamlined digitisation within Australia’s health system, important lessons can be learned from health facilities in the UK and US who have made the transition.
(Newswire.net -- June 4, 2015) Adelaide, SOUTH AUSTRALIA -- When it comes to the digitisation of records within the health care sector, the majority of practices, hospitals and health facilities face five main challenges; expensive upfront costs, dedicated buy-in from clinicians and management, security of private information, resourcing and potential changeover complications. This means that many facilities are hesitant to take the big leap of changing from paper-based systems to paperless systems despite the many positive aspects that digitisation offers.
For data management globally in the health industry, it is evident that the majority of the market has two choices in the current state of play; continue to use an inefficient but widely practised paper-based system, or move to digitisation, incurring a massive initial cost and requiring a complex, involved change management process that requires buy-in from both clinicians and operational management.
In Australia, the billion-dollar e-health system has been touted as “shambolic,” with few doctors and patients signing up to the voluntary scheme due to fear of liability and privacy of information. With success dependent on buy-in, the system faces redundancy if uptake doesn’t improve.
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MedicalDirector puts patients in touch with host of apps
- The Australian
- June 02, 2015
Jennifer Foreshew
Software company Medical-Director’s move into the consumer space will see it push out several new apps this year, including a teleconsult app for patients.
The medical software, research and information company recently launched a self check-in kiosk developed with patient flow technology provider Jayex.
It’s also building an app to allow patients to book appointments online, track prescriptions and potentially integrate personal health data from fitness and health tracking apps and devices into their clinical records.
MedicalDirector chief executive Phil Offer said the applications in development were designed to meet patient needs. “We are looking at how we can harness the platforms that consumers have available and how we can use that to really grow the doctor/patient relationship.’’
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Telstra plans tele-health consultation service
1 June, 2015
Australia’s largest mobile operator Telstra will soon expand its e-health portfolio with the launch of a service that gives customers 24/7 access to doctors via an app and secure voice or video connection.
Telstra is partnering with European telemedicine company Medgate to launch ReadyCare, which is scheduled for release on 1 July and will allow patients to make a phone or video call to a doctor and receive diagnosis, prescriptions, referrals and treatment – without having to make a physical visit.
Medgate, which provides 24/7 healthcare access to about 50 per cent of the Swiss population, said it conducts consultations with about 4,300 patients each day, more than half of which receive care and don’t require a follow-up face-to-face consultation.
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3D Medical signs software licence agreement with Telstra
Thursday, June 04, 2015 by Proactive Investors
3D Medical signs software licence agreement with Telstra
3D Medical (ASX:3DM) has signed a Software Licence and Support Agreement with Telstra (ASX:TLS) under which Telstra Health will be a reseller of the 3D Medical Mach7 image management software and integrate the technology to create new products.
The first customer has already been secured.
The Agreement also allows the supply of specific Telstra Health products to 3D Medical’s new and existing customers.
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3 stocks to profit from the e-health revolution
By Joshua Anderson - June 1, 2015 More on: GLHRMDTLS
E-health solutions have the potential to revolutionise health delivery in Australia and internationally. For Australians, some of the real benefits lie in overcoming long distances via online consultations and easing the burden of an ageing population on the health system thanks to a lower cost to serve.
With the cost of healthcare and health insurance on the rise, individuals are also staying on top of their own health status with a variety of technologies. The federal government is doing its bit, having spent $1 billion on the national myHealth electronic records system. This revolution, however, has not yet reached maturity, which means there is time for investors to benefit and these three ASX listed stocks should be top of your list.
With the resources of a top 10 ASX listed company, Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) could be the behemoth of Australian e-health. Although many people would be unfamiliar with Telstra’s e-health offering at this point, the company has thus far invested over $140 million in health technologies and is aiming to generate $1 billion in annual revenue from health by 2020.
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Teens look online for health answers
3rd Jun 2015
ONE in three American teenagers have changed their behaviour after looking up health information online, according to a major study on adolescents and technology.
Of 1156 US teens aged 13–18 years old surveyed for the report, 84% said they had used the internet to seek out health information.
When asked where they got “a lot” of their health information from, the leading answer was their parents, followed by health classes at school and doctors or nurses.
Northwestern University researchers, in their findings released on Tuesday in the report Teen, Health and Technology, a National Survey, said the internet ranked fourth as a source of health information for teenagers but was the top media source, far surpassing books, radio, newspapers or magazines in popularity.
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http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2015-ley068.htm
Boost for mental health researcher in the development of online tool
Minister for Health Sussan Ley congratulated Dr Philip Batterham on receiving the 2015 Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research.
Page last updated: 05 June 2015
5 June 2015
Minister for Health Sussan Ley today congratulated Dr Philip Batterham on receiving the 2015 Commonwealth Health Minister’s Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research for his work in the development of a mental health online support tool.
Dr Batterham is a National Health and Medical Research Council Research Fellow at the National Institute for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University and was presented with the award last night.
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Launch of New Terminology Service
Created on Tuesday, 02 June 2015
A new terminology service that enables access to both AMT and SNOMED CT-AU reference sets in a variety of release formats is now available.
National eHealth sign-ups reach 2.2m mark
Around 10,000 signs up a week to PCEHR/'myHealth Record'
As of midnight last night, 2,242,823 individuals had registered to be part of the national Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) system.
At the moment, around 10,000 people per week are signing up for the system, which the government revealed earlier this year will be renamed myHealth Record.
The sign-up figures were revealed today at a Senate Estimates hearing by Paul Madden, a special advisor for strategic health systems and information management at the Department of Health.
Those sign-ups represent "natural growth" for the system while awaiting the outcomes of the government's review into the PCEHR, Madden said.
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MyHealth records surpass 2.2 million
By Dylan Bushell-Embling | Thursday, 04 June, 2015
More than 2.24 million Australians have signed up to the national Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) system, according to the Department of Health.
At present, around 10,000 new people are signing up to the system per week, Department of Health special advisor Paul Madden told a Senate estimates hearing yesterday.
During the latest Budget, the government allocated $485.1 million to address the troubled PCEHR system, in response to a review of the project completed in late 2013. As part of the review the PCEHR will be renamed the MyHealth system.
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http://www.australianageingagenda.com.au/2015/06/05/call-for-aged-care-to-ensure-ehealth-compliance/
Call for aged care to ensure eHealth compliance
Aged care organisations need to ensure they are using the agreed national eHealth infrastructure, according to the chair of the authority supporting the national uptake of eHealth, who says help is on hand for any provider that wants it.
The government allocated $485 million over four years in the May Budget to “rescue” the under-subscribed eHealth system, which has 2,242,823 individuals and 144 aged care residents’ services signed up, according to a report given to the Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra on Tuesday.
New measures include trials of an opt-out e-health record model, replacing the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) with a new Australian Commission for eHealth, and renaming the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) to myHealth Record.
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Evolving citizen portals to enable digital government
Expectations for usage of 'one-stop-shop' portals have not been met, says Glenn Archer
Government portals have been used for decades to provide information to citizens, as well as simplify and consolidate online services, but there’s no denying that there has been mixed success over the years.
Good portals, however, drive service improvement and value, and represent an ideal transition platform to digital government. We have seen an obvious change in the application of portals in recent years.
The vision of a single ‘one-stop-shop’ website providing citizens with access to government services over the past decade has proven to be far more difficult than first anticipated and in many cases, the expectations for portal usage have not been achieved.
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Cash incentives on way for some PCEHR work
Serkan Ozturk and Paul Smith | June 5, 2015 | 0
GPs will be paid cash incentives to upload e-health summaries to the rebooted PCEHR — but only for patients with MBS care plans.
Federal Department of Health officials told a Senate Estimates hearing on Tuesday that the move was aimed at encouraging greater clinical engagement with the moribund system.
"The incentives will be paid as an entitlement to those who use the system to upload records on behalf of their most in-need patients, and they'd be the ones who have care plans," the department's special advisor for e-health, Paul Madden, told last week's hearing.
"So we'd be looking for a shared health summary for a small proportion of their total patient base."
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'Complex beyond anyone's understanding': a brief history of internet security
Date June 1, 2015
The internet grew from the work of many people over several decades. Few predicted how essential it would become to our lives or the ways that it would make us more vulnerable to scam artists, snoops and spies. Here are some of the milestones in the development of our insecure online world.
A new kind of network,1960
Engineer Paul Baran argues that a decentralised communications system with many redundant links could help the United States recover from a Soviet nuclear attack. The key is that information can flow across many different paths — much like today's internet — allowing connections even if much of the overall system suffered damage.
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Artificial intelligence – the potential emergence of new ‘human beings’
Blog TechLaw Blog
Global June 2 2015
Perhaps by now you have seen the recent movie, Ex Machina. If you have not, suffice it to say, an Internet coder is drawn into an unusual experiment in which he engages with a true artificial intelligence (AI) being delivered in the form of an attractive female robot. Is this the stuff of science fiction, or is it possible that humans may transform themselves fundamentally based on human design?
Historically speaking, it was not that long ago that Homo sapiens were not the only human species walking the planet. Indeed, Homo sapiens existed contemporaneously with Neanderthals, and there were other human species along the way as well. As we of course know, Homo sapiens are the only currently surviving human species. But is that about to change? By way of our own ability to create and invent, are we about to change Homo sapiens, or at least some Homo sapiens, into yet a new form?
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Windows 10 to ship on July 29 for PCs and tablets
The upgrade from Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 will be free until July 29, 2016
Microsoft hopes a new start menu will get users to upgrade starting from July 29
Microsoft will start shipping Windows 10 on July 29 for PCs and tablets. The upgrade includes the Cortana digital assistant, a whole host of new apps and the return of the start menu.
After the failure of Windows 8, Microsoft has a lot to prove with the latest version of its operating system. The launch date puts pressure on Microsoft's developers to finalize the feature-set and the look of the operating system. On Friday, the company released the latest version, dubbed Build 10130, which has new icons, Cortana improvements and some changes to the Start menu.
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Enjoy!
David.
Sorry but tried to comment on a recent post about electronic records but the url to the article was blogger.com /null....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newsbiscuit.com/2015/06/06/nhs-data-systems-diagnosed-with-incompetentitus/
EPAS data systems diagnosed with ‘Incompetentitus’
SA Health has confirmed this weekend that ‘hundreds, maybe thousands, probably lots’ of patient records have been passed to third parties against the patients’ wishes. A spokesman said: ‘We couldn’t help it, there was no way we could stop ourselves, and despite our strongest desires we just had to accept payments for this data. We’ll probably have to have a party or pay some bonuses to get rid of it. Maybe we could use it to influence the location of the World Cup?’
Experts are worried that the contagion might spread to other government agencies using the same incompetent computer system suppliers. A Commonwealth Health Department spokesman confirmed that most of the Russian submarine fleet are currently pointing at Australian targets, due to payments from Japan. ‘We don’t like it, but cash is cash, and anyway, it’s what the computer says’, he said.
Meanwhile the Treasury has confirmed that it has to pay certain public sector workers 9% more than average, in exchange for transparency in their expenses returns. ‘The computer system is just set up like that, there’s fuck all we can do about it,’ said a Treasury spokesman, adding: ‘Luckily it only affects a small number of public sector workers; the ones with ‘the right honourable’ in their name, for some weird reason.’
Computer industry experts have defended the problems with the EPAS systems. ‘It takes a good programmer maybe five minutes to set a system up to say ‘don’t export this data unless agreed’ and a government programmer perhaps five years, including contract changes, scrapping the whole programme, sacking two ministers and making sure that the final bill for one line of code a ten year old could write exceeds the Gross National Debt.’
"Sorry but tried to comment on a recent post about electronic records but the url to the article was blogger.com /null...."
ReplyDeleteBenedict - you click on the link not the title and it works. That is why the link is above the title!
David.