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."

Friday, July 24, 2015

It Seems The Department Of Health Thinks Education on the PCEHR Will Have Healthcare Providers Enthusiastic To Use It. Not Likely!

This popped up a few days ago:

Govt readies e-health record push to boost adoption

Training drive slated for 2016.

The Department of Health will renew efforts to address under-utilisation of electronic health records by the clinical community, with a training and promotion campaign due to kick off in January 2016.
The federal government’s $1 billion e-health scheme - originally dubbed the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) but since rebadged myHealth Record - has struggled against poor adoption rates since the system went live in 2012.
Ahead of the May 2015 budget, Health Minister Susan Ley said the government would make the electronic health records ‘opt-out’ - giving all Australians an account by default.
Despite this consumer-side push, however, concerns remain that clinicians don't see enough value in the system and aren't uploading or accessing data at the rates the original PCEHR architects envisioned.
Richard Royle’s 2013 review into the electronic health records found the system needed to reach a certain “tipping point” of input by clinicians to reach a critical mass of usefulness that would encourage all doctors to take it up.
The Health department will set the wheels in motion to reach this milestone by commencing a targeted training and myHealth Record promotion drive in early 2016.
This week it approached training providers to design the education programs, including guided online myHealth Record simulations, that will underpin the campaign.
The department isn’t satisfied with the average 3500 clinical documents uploaded into patient records by healthcare providers each week.
“Considerable scope exists to increase healthcare provider use of the myHealth Record system,” tender documents state.
More here:
Here is the link
The summary from the tender reads:
“The Department is seeking the design and development of materials for a nationally consistent, integrated and targeted education and training package (package) for healthcare providers which supports eHealth and My Health Record system outcomes.  This package seeks to achieve greater system uptake and meaningful use of the system by healthcare providers.  The developed package should focus on supporting practical and confident use of the My Health Record among healthcare providers.”
It is often said the only thing better than winning a Government Tender is to lose one!
In this case I suspect that may well turn out to be the case - given what a pup of an ill-conceived project and system they have to sell!
David.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

of course. Nothing wrong with the product - so clearly, getting the message out in the form of education is the solution. Would be silly to expect anything else - as the alternative requires fessing up to reality!

Bruce Farnell said...

Yet another attempt to put lipstick on a pig.

Karen Dearne said...

Yes, Bruce, unfortunately it's actually a dead pig, should be headed for the knackers.

Sadly it seems Labor will assist with attempted resuscitation but then it's their pig.

And just wait for the squealing from those with their snouts in the trough...

Terry Hannan said...

I love the pig analogies. Karen as you have stated before not only are thye trying to grow mushrooms but the mushrooms are duds also. On a slightly more serious note the "evaluation" in this statement sumsup the situation perfectly-"The department isn’t satisfied with the average 3500 clinical documents uploaded into patient records by healthcare providers each week".
It reminds me of several quotes from eminent health informaticians. "if the system is NOT CLINICALLY USEFUL IT WILL NOT BE USED".

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

The current "strategy" reminds me of the old saying I heard while at a large IT company, now sadly in decline:

The floggings will continue until morale improves.

The management of the PCEHR and that of the IT company have a lot in common - a lack of awareness of their own incompetence being one of the more important characteristics.

Anonymous said...

these comments are hilarious ! They were made 2-4 years ago almost verbatim when they had tiger teams and paid to get consultants to run around signing people up so they could claim legitimacy with adoption numbers!!!!

Anonymous said...

Reading the RFT the purpose is simply to develop the education material and some other group is likely to deliver, it also seems to be an exercise in centralising a range of incomplete and disparate/desperate approaches to providing education and awareness material. I guess if the RACGP can't support pushing the PCEHR to its Memebers and NEHTA can't even flog a free training resource to make a difference then the department is somewhat justified in restarting the change and adoption work.

I am looking forward to seeing how this gets delivered, self paced online will not cut it in this instance

Karen Dearne said...

They have already spent a shedload on so-called training and registration activities. The MLs got $50 million to spend on raising awareness and training GPs, while McKinsey/Aspen got millions more to conducted "assisted registration" - aka getting the numbers up

See here http://www.aspenmedical.com.au/content/730000-records-created-ehealth-time-and-target

And for entertainment, have a look at the Aspen training material (top link, page 26 on)

https://ahcsaehealth.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/aspen-assisted-registration-training-resources/

I particularly like the advice to keep the completed forms on your person at all times (for security reasons) and also to check for lipstick marks!!!