This appeared a few days ago.
Disease threat unchecked as School vaccination register faces a delay
Sue Dunlevy, National Health Reporter, News Corp Australia Network
October 30, 2016 12:00am
VITAL immunisation information that will help prevent killer disease outbreaks may not be available because of a delay in awarding a tender for the new Australian School Vaccination Register.
Two months before it’s due to start the federal government has yet to award a tender for the register that will remind high school students about key school based vaccines and identify areas with low immunisation.
The $26.4 million program was meant to begin on January 1 2017 and is a fundamental part of the government’s No Jab No Play policy introduced in response to News Corp’s campaign to improve immunisation rates.
However, the Department of Health has stopped short of guaranteeing the new register will be operating from that date.
The policy, announced 18 months ago, will identify people who miss a jab and provide incentives to doctors to provide catch up vaccinations.
At least 166,000 children were recorded as being more than two months overdue for their vaccinations in 2014.
The new registry was to replace the existing cervical cancer vaccine register and will for the first time provide a register of all school based vaccinations including the cervical cancer vaccine, varicella (chickenpox), the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough) booster.
While parents of young children are prompted to vaccinate their children by the withholding of childcare payments there is no way of checking the vaccination status of older schoolchildren.
High school students must receive a range of booster vaccines to help build herd immunity against killer diseases like whooping cough and measles.
“Further work is required to increase the national childhood vaccination rate so that it is high enough to meet ‘herd immunity’ for most vaccine preventable diseases,” Health Minister Sussan Ley said when she announced the new register in May 2015.
“The Government has approved the expansion of the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR) to become the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR), which will capture all vaccines given, from birth to death, through General Practice and community clinics because of the No Jab, No Pay Budget measure,” the government promised in a circular on the new program.
Lots more here:
One really has to wonder why this sort of stuff keeps happening. Creating a register is hardly rocket science.
What is slightly confusing is what relationship, if any, this register has to the Telstra Health cancer screening register.
The delays are really odd.
David.
"One really has to wonder why this sort of stuff keeps happening. Creating a register is hardly rocket science. What is slightly confusing is what relationship, if any, this register has to the Telstra Health cancer screening register."
ReplyDeleteYou don't think that the common factor (inc MyHR) is the Department of Health and its Special Adviser, Strategic Health Systems? Heaven help ADHA.
Don't worry everyone - we are here and we can help. We've started the Cancer Registry and a natural extension, with minor modifications, is the Immunisation Register and any other registers that may pop up. Telstra Health - Leading the way in storing your health information.
ReplyDeletere: "Telstra Health - Leading the way in storing your health information."
ReplyDeleteIt's not the storage that's the worry, it's who gets to see it and who can link to it.
And if you include a register of medication, allergies, history and significant health events - what have you got? A shared health summary, just like MyHR.
Confusion reigns. Or as they used to say in WW2, SNAFU.
I think the government should re-brand DOHA as SNAFU it accurately describes their mode of operation. If they had spent a bit of time specifying standard vaccination messages about 15 years ago when things actually worked at Standards Australia a registry would be a piece of cake.... but no its Situation Normal All F***ed up.
ReplyDeleteRe Nov 03,3:28 PM - with Telstra Health's CEO Shane Solomon jumping ship he might pop up in the ADHA. Shane paid millions for the company Tim founded - Dr Foster - and then brought him out from England to work in Telstra for a few months before he became CEO of the ADA. So I guess it's time for Tim to return Shane some favours!
ReplyDeleteHardly say jumping ship, he retires in February, you know around the same time as Tim UK chum starts and the Strategy starts to be sold.
ReplyDelete9:39 Exactly. Tim owes him big time. Join the dots.
ReplyDelete1. Tim Kelsey 10 March 2016 http://exchange.telstra.com.au/2016/03/10/why-the-information-revolution-in-healthcare-wont-wait-any-longer/
“ My journey into health started back in 2000 when I co-founded a business called Dr Foster which pioneered new approaches to measuring quality in healthcare …”
2. Pulse IT – 2 March 2015 - Telstra Health buys UK health analytics firm Dr Foster,. First established in 1999 by two journalists as a way to publish information on the quality of NHS hospitals,
3. Telstra Health managing director Shane Solomon said Dr Foster had approached Telstra when it decided to look for a buyer.
4. Telstra has acquired British health analytics company Dr Foster in a deal estimated to be worth between $40 million to 50 million as part of its recent push to grow profits from non-traditional businesses.
5. Dr Foster is a London-based company part-owned by the UK's Department of Health.
One of the key weapons you will see emerging to be used against the Australian Healthcare services, public and campaigners will be a growing misuse of socially minded vocabulary and community development buzzwords.
ReplyDeleteYou’ll all have come across them. Engaged, participatory, resilient, empowering, co-produced, personalised, sustainable….
You’ll soon find these buzzwords all over the ADHA and DoH, mixed with a dash of new age personal therapy speak, I feel for the employees as they w,I'll be bombarded by undercover kaftan wearing change management consultants too.
Healthcare staff will start to be bombarded with this doublespeak in top down memos, guidelines and motivational training sessions.
The public will (are starting to)be bombarded by messages and ‘consultations’ pushing the ‘transformational’ changes taking place and inviting them to be part of a ‘participatory revolution’. I am already witnessing well-meaning people being led to believe that their contribution might have some influence. Indeed it may well be worth going to some of their events, at least to try to understand – and query – how they are using these buzzwords.
This dishonest vocabulary aims to fool the public including well intended champions of eHealth and better health and well being causes, into supporting a host of dubious changes. It relies on a counterpoint image of a desperately archaic Health system, crumbling in an inevitable apocalypse of overweight ageing, diabetic bed blockers who really should know better and die in their own beds – “Care Home”.
It glosses over the fact that public funding is being withheld and wasted on bureaucracy.
The manipulative buzzword bingo is intended to persuade us (patient, public, healthcare worker, scientist blah blah) that when we take part in their endless focus groups, petitions and surveys, we are helping the ‘struggling’, ‘failing’ Aussie Health system to meet the ‘challenges of the 21st century’.
It hides the fact that private corporations are moving in and setting the agendas. It hides the fact that behind the trust relationship with care providers, private health and insurance firms are already operating, mostly unseen by the public, corporations are squeezing out local firms, limiting Jobs and Growth and stifling innovation and agility Mr Turnbullxxxx, or who ever is PM next month.
Be the Change You Want to Be... Your say, your way , hardly suckers, and thanks for all the fish
Anon 9:56am. You want to join some dots? Strait here and fan out - http://www.m-group.com.au/
ReplyDeleteThey know the government departments are so easily corrupted
The last few post are spot on, sadly there is not much we can do. Health and eHealth are victims of a broader problem, that is the Government (public sevants and elected memebers) at bothe federal and state are unable to think, let alone out of any box. They are desperate for answers, not savvy enough, so therefore get taken for mugs time and time again. By the time the realise the hole is another six foot deeper it will be to late and the cycle will start again.
ReplyDeleteThe best we can do is use this as a way to at least get something we need, it will never be everything, but something slowly builds up.