This appeared a few days ago.
The future of digital health in Australia: a social policy discussion
By Australian Digital Health Agency
03.02.2017
As Australia moves towards a digital health system, important social policy discussions are needed about how future developments will affect Australians. Join us and a panel of policy experts to have your say.
Emerging technologies are changing the global economy and Australian society. This is largely being driven by consumers who are demanding personalised wrap around services, most notably in banking, shopping and social networking. In healthcare the demand for consumer-centred services is driving the demand for new digital models of care – which follow patients, their carers and family through the health system.
On Monday 13th February from 2.00pm – 3.30pm (AEDT) the Australian Digital Health Agency is delivering a national webcast which will inform Australia’s next Digital Health Strategy.
The open Q&A webcast is especially relevant to all government agencies with an interest in digital health and an important next step in advancing discussions between the public, stakeholders, industry and those developing and implementing policy.
Digital Health Agency chief executive Tim Kelsey wants to know what you think.
As digital health traverses all jurisdictions, communities and a myriad of stakeholder and professional groups, this up-front online discussion is a pivotal opportunity to find out more and ask questions about developments that will soon touch all Australians.
It follows an extensive community consultation that has received over 1050 online submissions and attracted 2,500 people to meetings, forums, workshops, webcasts and town halls across Australia.
Facilitated by Ellen Fanning, the webcast and discussion will be focused on digital health, including trends, public policy considerations, emerging technologies and overarching themes.
Key public sector leaders and experts at the coalface of delivering digital health will also be actively be participating and answering questions.
All the needed details are found here:
This seems to be a useful discussion to listen in to.
David.
Digital Health Agency chief executive Tim Kelsey wants to know what you think.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find confusing, perhaps misleading’ is the statement that this webcam session will inform Australia’s next Digital Health Strategy. Perhaps he meant to say it is designed to inform participants about eHealth.
It looks like Tim plans running a series of these mock consultation webinar's, with different talking heads, in the blind hope that more people will listen in and get educated into the ADHA's thinking.
Which is better, to join the crowd or ignore it?
ReplyDeleteThe first might provide some information and maybe allow for sending in questions, the second might contribute to any real or apparent apathy.
ignoring it might instead just save a lot of time and effort, which can then be focussed on actually doing something to improve patient care. Just sayin'.
ReplyDeleteNo chance of that, while some are off self promoting a national organisation is crumbling.
ReplyDeleteIt is crumbling because the department wants to see it fail, anything with 'digital' in its tittle is or the chopping block, look at DTA.
ReplyDeleteRe 8.03 am - "a national organisation is crumbling". That maybe your view BUT Tim Kelsey, Paul Madden, Health Ministers, ADAH Chair and ADAH Advisory Board, Members of the many Committees just announced, Treasurer and Prime Minister, Medical Observer, mainstream media and PulseIT don't seem to have any inkling of that. You must therefore be wrong in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.
ReplyDelete9:18 am says "... the department wants to see it fail .... !!! That is plainly ridiculous. 9.22 am sums it up far better ... there is no evidence to support that supposition. In fact if the Department wanted it to fail it would pull back on funds, defer key decisions, leak adverse findings and reports into the public arena, etc. That has not been happening so the evidence suggests the Department does not want it to fail regardless of its merit or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteDavid, I think it's time 9.18 and 8:03 either got real or ceased contributing to this blog or you, the adjudicator, ruled such comments inappropriate.
The responses are so swift I am happy to let the commentators sort it out. If total 'Fake News' goes unchallenged then I will act...
ReplyDeleteDavid.
David, I suggest the Department has positioned itself at an arm's length from the fray with the creation of the ADHA. As such, it can return to health policy and let the new ship's captain and advisory crew sail to whatever fate that awaits.
ReplyDeleteThe challenge for the new captain and his advisory committees is whether they will see this ship sink on their watch.
If it does, the Minister and Department have achieved some separation from the fallout.
What's a bit of money at the end of the day?
My only question is whether there is anyone who really cares about what happens and if so, are they at all interested in averting or avoiding the peril that awaits?
John Scott sums it up perfectly. That is the modus operandi of a government department. I'm not sure if it is laid out in any policy and procedures manual or if it simply reflects the way the bureaucracy thinks about how to preserve and protect itself from any nuclear fallout.
ReplyDeleteJohn, NEHTA was established arms length removed from the Department when the HealthConnect fiasco became politically embarrassing and we all know what happened to NEHTA after 7+ years of muddling along at great cost to the taxpayer.
Think further back to when (in the early days of the .com hype era) the government's HIC (Health Insurance Commission) was involved with its Health Communication Network project. When that got into trouble the HCN project was moved arms length from the HIC which then opened the way for a management buyout and eventually the establishment of what we know today as Health Communications Network.
So, as John has pointed out, we are witnessing the way it is and the way it will be and this is the third time around the block.
The new captain and his advisory committees don't intend to see their ship sink on their watch. Rather they would like to see it stay afloat until some VC's (Venture Capital Firm) injects capital to acquire it, preparatory to an IPO float on the ASX in the hope of getting rich on the way out.
Does that fit with your line of thinking John?
Some VC = Telstra?
ReplyDeleteRe 12:48 - Some VC = Telstra?
ReplyDeleteI doubt Telstra would have the appetite for such a high risk venture. It has more than enough problems / indigestion to deal with after its reckless $240 million spending spree to haphazardly acquire 18 quite disconnected health related software companies
in the misguided belief they could all be seamlessly integrated with each other.
https://www.pulseitmagazine.com.au/australian-ehealth/3546-telstra-health-moves-from-m-a-to-integration-delivery-and-scale-in-2017
11:19, the earlier posts seem more akin to an indervidual perspective rather than fake news, David has my support in letting them post, what makes this blog so interesting is that it is an opinion based site and not subject to sensorship.
ReplyDeleteThere is definitely a flavour of frustration in them and where there is smoke .... on the other hand some responses seem as staged as Trumps media posse in my OPINION.
In regard to the comment made by Anonymous 12:38:
ReplyDelete1. The Health Insurance Commission was never involved in the Health Communications Network initiative. I know that because I lead the initiative. We very purposefully excluded the HIC because we want to ensure that the initiative was always about moving information to the point of care.
2. Importantly and strategically, at the Commonwealth level we understood very well that we did not know how to take the opportunity forward. And, we were going to have to prove that we could be trusted to operate in the care delivery space. The opportunity was a focus on improving the flows of information to the point of care recognizing that we had evidence from the Telecom Research Labs that 67% of nurses time was expended on information--not actual care bedside care delivery. This was the huge opportunity that we took to Health Ministers and which they endorsed.
3. We worked successfully for several years demonstrating the value of purposeful organized collaboration. Such collaboration had to separate and then purposefully connect two spheres: a) the physical human sphere of health (and all the health sector politics); and b) the digital sphere. This enabled issues to be raised and resolved where they properly belonged. On overlapping issues, they were jointly considered in order to provide the best policy advice. Privacy in an electronic network was a case in point.
4. Our overarching aim was the design and establishment of a Trusted, Independent Collaboration mechanism--one that was competent and capable. The Health Communications Network Company was endorsed by Health Ministers. It was in fact a start-up privatization by a Labour government.
5. We demonstrated what could be achieved through purposeful organized collaboration and privately we were looking forward to our new creation taking to the air and successfully flying to the aid of the broader health system.
6.The Health Communications Network company was sold off to the private sector by the incoming Howard government; I presume as part of its ideology of smaller government.
7.The fact that we continue to struggle with purposeful organized collaboration has much more to do with ideology and politics than it does with any unwillingness on the part of clinicians to embrace digital pathways.
6. In regard to some IPO, etc. The real question is whether there is any asset to value? A corollary would be whether the public would ever allow such action to be taken? Perhaps the Australia Card could provide an analogy.
8. Finally, we are all speculating about what the ADHA and indeed the Federal Government has in mind.
All I can do is correct the record and suggest and express the view that our most fundamental challenge is how we can organize purposeful collaboration to address the challenges and opportunities inherent in connecting the human sphere with the electronic/digital sphere in the right way.