Thursday, October 08, 2015

Is This A Realistic Hope And Will The Dying NEHTA Actually Do Something Useful?

This appeared last week:

Solution to GP email misery on the horizon

Alice Klein | 1 October, 2015 |
There may be light at the end of the tunnel for GPs who are fed up with using multiple different secure messaging services to email patient information to other doctors, industry insiders say.
Australian doctors are currently forced to use up to 10 secure messaging services in order to be compatible with each other's email systems — a situation that the chair of the RACGP's e-health committee calls an "outrage".
"It's the same as if Telstra phones did not talk to Optus phones, which did not talk to Vodafone phones," Dr Nathan Pinskier told the audience at the RACGP's annual conference last week.
"The vendors have basically taken a lockdown perspective. They're saying, ‘I have a share of the pie; it's protected'."
But a spokesman for MMEx told Australian Doctor that the different services would most likely become compatible in less than a year, following a meeting among providers last month that was convened by the National E-Health Transition Authority.
"I think there's a genuine will around the table for people to get this problem solved," said Chris Pearson, who runs ISA Healthcare Solutions, the provider of MMEx.
"The argument that the Department of Health has put forward, and I agree with this, is that if you make secure messaging easy, then there will be many more people who start to use it, and everyone can make more money out of it," he said.
More here:
I loved the two comments:
1- This is why I still need a fax machine.

2- We were promised this 10 years ago. And never happened. I'm sure that in 12 months’ time, it still will only be a dream.
My comments are as follows:
1. NEHTA has now been in existence for a decade and have not fixed this.  Just what is going to change in the next few months?
2. Where are the notes of this meeting so those not involved can know what is going on within this publicly funded organisation?. A claim of commercial confidentiality is clearly rubbish given the number of parties involved. The leopard never changes its spots - but I fear the ACeH will be just as bad. Already they seem to be having secret meetings etc.
I really hope this is not just an advertorial for MMEx - given the reality of the issues mentioned.
Read here about MMEx:
I do wonder a little about their apparent enthusiasm for the PCEHR!
David.

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