Just coincidentally we had some interesting related releases last week.
First we had from ADHA the following pair.
National Medicines Safety Program Established
Created on Thursday, 19 January 2017
The Australian Digital Health Agency is pleased to announce the establishment of a new national Medicines Safety Program.
The Agency’s Executive General Manager Clinical and Consumer Engagement and Clinical Governance, and Chief Clinical Information Officer Dr Monica Trujillo said the program will work with consumers and healthcare providers to explore how digital health can improve the safety and quality of medicines usage in Australia.
Dr Steve Hambleton, former president of the Australian Medical Association and one of Australia’s most respected authorities in digital health has been joined by Mr Steven Renouf, former rugby league star and dedicated advocate for Aboriginal health as Program Co-Sponsors. Mr Neville Board will represent the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality on Health Care (ACSQHC).
“Evidence from research into medication safety indicates that significant patient harm and sub-optimal use of medicines frequently result from the discontinuity that occurs when patients visit different healthcare providers. Digital health can help address this,” said Dr Hambleton.
Mr Steven Renouf developed Type 1 Diabetes while at the peak of his sporting career and also has four children with diabetes. A Deadly Choices ambassador encouraging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to get health checks, Mr Renouf is well aware of the health issues facing the Indigenous population.
“We need to find ways to help people manage their medicines better, particularly in communities that need it the most.”
Here is the link:
There are also more details available.
Establishment of Medicines Safety Program January 2017
The Australian Digital Health Agency is pleased to announce the establishment of a new Medicines Safety Program.
Good medicines management can help to reduce the likelihood of medication errors and hence patient harm. The Program is designed to improve the access and quality of medicines information through the use of digital health, enabling consumers and healthcare providers to make safe, informed decisions and achieve better health outcomes.
The Program’s Executive Sponsor is Dr Monica Trujillo, the Agency’s Executive General Manager Clinical and Consumer Engagement and Clinical Governance, and Chief Clinical Information Officer. The Agency welcomes the Programme Co-Sponsors Dr Steve Hambleton and Mr Steven Renouf who will advocate the interests of clinicians and consumers, and Mr Neville Board representing the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC).
The first Steering Group meeting took place in Sydney on Thursday 8 December 2016 with 27 members in attendance representing a range of healthcare peak bodies and consumer groups. The group will meet quarterly. A full list of Steering Group members is at the end of the Communique.
The Program has four primary objectives:
- Undertake and validate an environment scan of all the current and planned digital activities that support access to safer medicines; identify opportunities for improved coordination, collaboration, and investment.
- Identify existing Agency projects that should be governed by the Medicines Safety Programme to ensure coordination and prioritisation based on the target outcomes, dependencies, and interdependencies.
- Identify new priority projects or activities, through consultation with the healthcare sector, which should be delivered directly by the Agency or through partnerships with other organisations. This will include the investigation of any short-term opportunities for improvement identified through the National Digital Health Strategy consultation, which should be included in the Agency work plan.
- Develop an evidence-based, sector-wide digital Medicines Safety Programme roadmap, including a benefits realisation plan to monitor progress of both adoption and outcomes.
In the short term, the group will engage with consumers and clinicians on enhancing medicines management use and capability in the My Health Record system.
Steering Group members
- Australian Commission on Quality and Safety in Health Care
- Pharmacy Guild of Australia
- The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia
- The Society of Hospital Pharmacists Australia
- Australian Private Hospitals Association
- Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation
- Pharmaceutical Benefits Branch (Commonwealth Department of Health)
- Therapeutic Goods Administration
- NPS MedicineWise
- Australian Medical Association
- Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
- Royal Australasian College of Physicians
- Medical Software Industry of Australia
- Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine
- Jurisdictional representatives
- Aged and Community Services Australia
- Consumer Health Forum
- Academic(s)
Here is the link:
At almost the same time this appeared.
ASX ANNOUNCEMENT
16 January 2017
Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 4C
Highlights
· Record operating cash receipts for the quarter, totalling $1.32 million, an increase of 77% on the September quarter ($0.75 million)
· Strong operational performance across all key metrics
o Over 600,000 users on the MedAdvisor platform as at 31 December 2016, an increase of over 160% since September 2016
o Over 45% of Australian pharmacies connected to the platform (30% in September quarter 2016)
o Patient Engagement Programs (PEPs) experienced rapid traction, closing the quarter with 18 medications using the platform across 9 of Australia’s largest pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, GSK, AstraZeneca, Novartis & Bristol-Myers Squibb
o Increased the number of General Practitioners (GPs) benefiting from the platform to nearly 4,000 GPs
o Tap-to-Refill script ordering function processing an average of $2.5 million in script refill value per week
· Completion of $8 million oversubscribed capital raising receiving strong participation from leading Australian financial institutions and pharmacy groups
· Completion of Healthnotes acquisition, significantly enhancing the MedAdvisor offering and expanding market share
· Key partnership agreements with Asthma Australia and Osteoporosis Australia, plus extended existing relationship with Bupa into certain Healthscope Hospitals
MedAdvisor Limited (ASX: MDR, the Company), Australia’s leading digital medication management company, has today released its Appendix 4C Report for the three-month period to 31 December 2016 and is pleased to provide a review of the progress during the period.
Financial & Corporate
During the quarter, the Company reported total operating cash receipts of $1.32 million, a 77% increase on the previous September quarter ($0.75 million) The increase was driven by significant growth across all key metrics in the platform, including the number of pharmacies, the number of patients using the platform and a rapid increase in collections from Patient Engagement Programs (PEPs).
Net operating cash outflows for the quarter totalled $0.77 million, compared to the previous September quarter which reported net operating cash outflows of $0.71 million.
The Company closed the quarter with $5.93 million in cash.
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There is a lot more information on the website.
As you can see the company is providing an app to assist people manage their medications and have a pretty large number of patients, pharmacies and GPs involved.
Exploring the web-site is well worthwhile:
The overlap is obvious and I am sure there are other companies also in this area as well.
Surely an important part in the planned strategy is to work out how the ADHA can work with these companies to not re-invent the wheel while at the same time not get in their way.
Government (and agencies) have a poor record in this public / private domain and it would be good if the well-known mistakes made by NEHTA are not repeated.
I hope this paragraph does not presage a closed mind approach to medication management.
“In the short term, the group will engage with consumers and clinicians on enhancing medicines management use and capability in the My Health Record system.” This does not sound good to me, given the variety of options available!
David.
Agreed - it does not sound good. Let's face the facts - with taxpayer's money Government pays for (subsidises) medicines for all Australians. Consequently, we can be sure the Department (ADHA) / Government has no intention of relinquishing centralised control over medicines management to any 3rd party be it a Script Exchange or whoever.
ReplyDeleteAs long as they don't assume that MyHR has any place in any potential solution. If they don't know why. they should be told. If nobody in ADHA can tell them, they'll just be wasting their time.
ReplyDeleteI think the government and its agency will soon discovered that over the past few years in their abscence and with no free money about the market has moved on, no longer incorporates government funds in cash flows. Removing Standards and conformance programs means they have no role left.
ReplyDeleteGovHR is the only chip they have and Telstra is wise to profit from it, develop a cheap app and sell the data to a desperate department.
I do hope this medications safety program finds a useful role, it is well over due and new and knowledgable leadership will hopefully bring fresh thinking and a revised partnership with other HIT disciplines.
"new and knowledgable leadership" that's a good idea maybe the government should try it.
ReplyDelete#censusfail, #centrelinkfail. I can't wait for #medicinessafetyfail and #myhrfail, closely followed by #adhafail.
ReplyDeleteWhy all the fail fail fail. We should get behind this and help find a role, I personally worry the industry is running a muck with no accountability and no oversight. I also think the ADHA should not build and operate infrastructure for the same reason, there is no inderpendant oversight and the resources could be better focused on more important areas that many private organisations cannot afford to participate in or see little direct profit from participating in.
ReplyDeleteRe 7:31 PM GovHR is the only chip they have and Telstra is wise to profit from it, develop a cheap app and sell the data to a desperate department.
ReplyDeleteCheap apps are nothing more than fads. Telstra should stay away from apps, apps and more apps in health and take a big big breath, step back and have another fresh look at the 'health' problem that the Gov, The Department, NEHTA, ADHA have all been fiddling and muddling around with for over a decade.
Steering Group members - this says it all. Yep they’ve got just about everyone – including jurisdictional representatives and academics; a full busload! It says we are bereft of ideas about how to address this problem so we are demonstrating leadership by enrolling as many ‘stakeholders’ as we can think of in the hope some of them (their representatives) will have some useful ideas and in the hope we can use them to give some kind of credibility to what we are hoping to deliver and thus (in some way) encourage their members to embrace whatever it is that we eventually end up developing. When development of hugely complex problems is guided by all embracing committee representatives we can be sure we will end up with a hugely complex solution. Pardon Monsieur but haven’t we seen this all before?
ReplyDeleteIt's called a camel.
ReplyDeleteADHA knows exactly what it wants to do and is generally already doing it. There's various documents and EOIs around that tell you what all these things are.
The "consultation", "advisory groups" and "steering committees" are nothing more than PR, window dressing and a demonstration to senate committees that they have been good little boys and followed the letter of the law. Will they save any money or deliver improved health outcomes? Don't hold you're breath.
The thing I also noticed about all this was that the Steering Committee met in early December, 2016 and the first most hear about it is mid January 2017. One is forced to wonder why no 'expression of interest' or some such about being involved - or did I miss it.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that struck me as just how vague and ill defined the announcement seemed. One senses this is a group looking for a problem (not that there is not one) and hoping it will all become clear just what is needed as time passes!
Again, time will tell.
David.
10.21 am and 2.50 pm have hit the bulls eye. For those who do not understand - let me spell it out - the bureaucracies modus operandi is to build big committees and sub-committees use them to show the Minister and anyone else that they have a huge amount of interest in what they are doing.
ReplyDeleteThere’s a natural human instinct to stick to what you know. Don’t go out of your comfort zone because things are really scary out there. And so there’s a tendency to just hold on and just squeeze harder on what you’re currently doing. Transformation is far to hard for Government, changing deck chairs is about the limit of innovation.
ReplyDeletewhether deliberate or not, the ADHA survey follows the same principles as outlined in the previous two posts.
ReplyDelete1 The survey assumes that digital health is a good thing and so the questions are phrased accordingly.
2. It is more likely that people who favour digital health and myhr will fill in the survey and express their opinions
This will give totally biased and skewed response, but which will be used by AHDA to bolster their case for their own survival.
Considering that medical science is probably the most familiar with study bias and how to avoid it, this demonstrates just how little ADHA knows about medicine (not heathcare, that's a totally different field - mostly driven by money).
And we all know that the ADHA has little or nothing to do with medicine.