If You Want To Know How Thin The Air Is In Canberra Try This? They Need To Come Back To Reality!

In the press release on the new Committee formed to establish the ACeH we find the following:

Developing a 21st century electronic health record system

Minister for Health Sussan Ley has announced the Committee that will oversee the rebooted personalised My Health Record system for patients and doctors.

Page last updated: 09 October 2015

PDF printable version of Developing a 21st century electronic health record system - PDF 381 KB

9 October 2015

Minister for Health Sussan Ley today announced the Committee that will oversee the rebooted personalised My Health Record system for patients and doctors as part of a $485 million package to deliver Australians an electronic medical record system.

Ms Ley announced the appointment of Ms Robyn Kruk AM as the independent chair of the eHealth Implementation Taskforce Steering Committee responsible for the establishment of the Australian Commission for eHealth.

“A functioning national electronic medical records system is essential to ensure doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare providers across the country had instant access to the information needed to treat patients safely and efficiently without having to gamble on unknowns in their medical history,” Ms Ley said.

“As patients, we’ve all been in the situations where we’ve had to attend another GP surgery because we were out-of-town or couldn’t get an appointment with our regular doctor. It can be a time consuming and often frustrating experience for patients and doctors alike.”

The full release is found here:

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2015-ley122.htm

See the italicized extract!

Enough even… Can we have the evidence that confirms the validity and truth of this sort of assertion and that the value offered to patients and clinicians is actually worth the very substantial costs and risks to privacy etc. While I am no luddite I can see no evidence regarding how vital such a record system is! Anyone have any?

We really have had an appalling level of justification for this initiative and have had it like this ever since the PCEHR “thought bubble” appeared. This is even more true considering how ill-conceived the solution that has been developed was.

As for the PCEHR being a 21st Century system....get a grip!

It really is pretty sad.

David.