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
It is all winding down - but just a few worth posting.
Happy Festive Season!
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Move It To Improve It: E-health program trial improving outcomes for kids with cerebral palsy
By Andrew Kos
A Queensland e-health project is helping transform medical care for regional and remote children with cerebral palsy and brain injuries.
The Move It To Improve It program, aimed at increasing strength, coordination and cognitive function, has been trialled for three years.
It uses a specialised camera attached to a home computer to help children undergo therapy through the use of tailored interactive games and puzzles.
Project leader Professor Roslyn Boyd said the results spoke for themselves.
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Australian Public Service spends $10 billion on consultants
Date December 14, 2015 - 9:20PM
Noel Towell
Reporter for The Canberra Times
Procurement spending by the Australian Public Service soared by $10 billion in the past financial year with Commonwealth agencies splashing nearly $60 billion of taxpayers' cash in 2014-2015.
New figures from the Finance Department show nearly $10 billion of the total went to pay external "management and business professionals" and on "administrative services" in the wake of the loss of thousands of full-time public service jobs.
Another $13 billion was spent on "politics and civic affairs" as spending on external services grew to $39 billion, twice the $20 billion spent on goods.
The figures, compiled from contracts notified on the AusTender website, reveal the procurement spending by the Australian Public Service has exploded by nearly 100 per cent since 2010-2011, when $32.6 billion was spent, to more than $59 billion in 2014-2015.
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Forget going to the doctor for a medical certificate, do it online
December 16, 20156:20pm
ANYBODY who has ever chucked a sickie knows the pain of stripping off pyjamas to get that pesky medical certificate your boss is hounding you for.
But now you can get your sick note in the time it takes to put down your spoon full of chicken soup.
Dr Sicknote, a website established about nine days ago, consults patients through a video conference before emailing them their medical certificate at a cost of $20.
Website chief executive Dr Sachin Patel said there were already 125 registered users, ranging from uni students to near retirees, who got the day off work without even leaving their bed.
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IBM chases Qld for legal costs in payroll lawsuit
Taxpayers to be left even further out of pocket.
By Paris Cowan
Dec 17 2015 6:00AM
Dec 17 2015 6:00AM
IBM is going after the Queensland government for all the legal fees it incurred defending itself against the state’s compensation lawsuit over the pair's failed health payroll project.
The technology giant, which was the prime contractor for the 2007 replacement of Queensland Health’s legacy payroll software, wants the government to cover the full cost of its successful application to have the case thrown out of court.
It also wants to be compensated for all the cash it spent fighting the original lawsuit filed in the Brisbane Supreme Court in December 2013.
Last week Justice Glenn Martin ruled in favour of IBM’s push to have the Queensland case thrown out of court, based on a waiver of liability signed by both parties in 2010.
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Qld Health hires super CIO for e-health drive
Colin McCririck takes on more responsibility.
By Allie Coyne
Dec 14 2015 12:40PM
Dec 14 2015 12:40PM
Queensland Health has promoted its chief technology officer Colin McCririck to the top job at its new spun-out electronic health division, where he will take the lead on operational and strategic health IT for the state.
In September the department revealed it was looking for an executive to lead eHealth Queensland, which was established in August to support the state’s 16 independently-operating hospitals and health services as well as the health department.
It said the new recruit would step into a role left vacant by former chief health information officer Mal Thatcher's departure, and also serve as Queensland Health's CIO.
The appointment means McCririck will be charged with reforming health IT services in the state while also overhauling one of the most notorious and closely-watched IT environments in the country.
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Colin McCririck moves into CIO role at eHealth Queensland
The former CTO of Queensland Health said he will work with industry, academia and startups in delivering an integrated, digital health system
eHealth Queensland has found itself a new CIO and chief executive – Colin McCririck, who was CTO at Queensland Health for about a year.
McCririck will help implement the state’s eHealth Investment Strategy (2014-2018). This includes $300 million in ICT infrastructure, $130 million in digital technology and $30 in information interoperability across 16 hospital and health services (HHSs).
The strategy involves deploying mobile devices for remote monitoring of patients, including integration with biomedical beside devices.
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Colin McCririck to lead eHealth Queensland
Colin McCririck tasked with positioning organisation as collaborative ICT business
Former Queensland Health CTO Colin McCririck has been appointed as eHealth Queensland’s CEO and CIO.
The newly created agency is tasked with supporting the ICT needs of the state’s 16 Hospital and Health Services (HHSs) and the Department of Health.
According to McCririck, he was excited about shaping the organisation’s agenda.
“To me eHealth Queensland is about enabling better patient care through digital healthcare - supporting clinical staff in providing excellent healthcare,” he said.
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Victoria's failed Ultranet project to be scrutinised by IBAC
Accusations to be laid bare in February 2016.
By Paris Cowan
Dec 17 2015 9:39AM
Dec 17 2015 9:39AM
Victoria’s corruption watchdog has announced a dedicated inquiry into the state Department of Education’s failed Ultranet student portal implementation, following allegations of “serious corruption” within the organisation.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) will begin hearings into the $180 million IT project in February 2016 off the back of Operation Ord, which touched on some suspect dealings in the procurement phase of Ultranet.
IBAC will probe relationships between executives of the Department of Education and the consortium selected to deliver the project - CSG (since acquired by NEC) and Oracle.
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NEHTA eHealth Software Developer Community announcement – Conformance Test Specification for PCEHR Views
Created on Monday, 14 December 2015
The National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) is pleased to announce the publication of the Conformance Test Specification for PCEHR Views.
Who does this affect?
Developers that want to implement one of the PCEHR Views will find in the Conformance Test Specification the test cases that must be passed as a prerequisite to declaring conformance to the presentation requirements.
Developers that have already implemented one or more of the PCEHR Views may use the conformance test specification when they migrate to a new version of the Views.
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http://wolandscat.net/2015/12/15/evolution-of-ehr-solutions-from-the-proprietary-to-the-post-modern/
Evolution of EHR solutions – from the proprietary to the post-modern
15/12/2015 by
Tomaz Gornik from Marand, an innovation obsessive (and rightly so) provides a nice write-up of the evolution of solutions from:
- proprietary => best-of-breed integrated mega-suite => agile, multi-vendor
The last is the new world of innovative, agile, mostly cloud-based and multi-vendor solutions. This is what Gartner calls “Postmodern”. Have a read.
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How politics derailed a hundred million dollar IT overhaul
Inside Queensland’s latest payroll saga.
By Paris Cowan
Dec 14 2015 6:00AM
Dec 14 2015 6:00AM
The Queensland election couldn’t have come at a worse time for Datacom.
In late 2014 the IT services company was on the verge of signing a massive, hard-won deal with Queensland’s Public Safety Business Agency to take over the job of processing the wages of all the state’s ambulance and prison officers, firies, and non-frontline support workers.
The business process outsourcing would hand end-to-end payroll processing to Datacom on its SAP platform, and take the state government off the hook for the replacement of its long out-of-date LATTICE payroll technology.
iTnews understands Datacom had spent a very large sum of money on the bidding process at this point.
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Malcolm's mess: how the Coalition's NBN came unstuck
Date December 11, 2015
Hannah Francis
Technology Reporter
It's been a tough few weeks for the Prime Minister's record on the national broadband network (NBN), though you might have missed it amid all the talk about "innovation" and "the ideas boom".
Back in April 2013, then shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull unveiled a plan to bury Labor's fibre-to-the-premise (FTTP) NBN with a three-word slogan: Fast. Affordable. Sooner.
It's turning out to be a bit of a shoddy, delayed, sticky tape and rubber band and gaffer tape solution.
Senior telco executive
Cost blowouts and delays had turned Labor's nation-building exercise into a political disaster. Fibre would have meant internet speeds light-years faster than copper, but at a price. The opposition's promise of an NBN delivered years sooner and $60 billion cheaper – with 25Mbps download speeds to all Australians by 2016 – sounded unbelievably good.
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Enjoy!
David.
Francis Kim has left a new comment on your post "Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 21st December,...":
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you already know - but the headers all go to a broken link
Francis,
ReplyDeleteLinks above the title all work - read blog instructions.
Thanks
David