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
A really, really quiet week as we roll up to the 5th birthday of the myHR / PCEHR. As we all know it has saved many, many lives and is an example or a really great Health IT project brought to us by the combined genius of both the Liberal / National and Labor Governments.
There are also a few interesting stories to browse, especially the increasing unease regarding just how well the NBN will deliver – Enjoy!
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First NSW ICUs get e-health records
By Justin Hendry on Jun 14, 2017 5:15PM
With a further six to come.
eHealth NSW’s electronic record for intensive care (eRIC) has gone live in three of the state’s hospitals, with a further six hospitals to introduce the system before the end of 2017.
The statewide electronic clinical information system has been designed to drive better patient decision-making and patient outcomes in all 43 hospital intensive care units (ICUs) across NSW.
The iMDSoft MetaVision-based platform will be one of the world’s largest health system-wide ICU clinical information systems when complete.
St George Hospital is the state’s first metropolitan hospital to introduce the platform, following the deployment of eRIC at Coffs Harbour Health Campus earlier this month, and a pilot at Port Macquarie Base Hospital in October 2016.
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My Health Record – Lessons From The Opt-Out Trial
14 Jun 2017
By Dr Richard Kidd, Chair, AMA Council of General Practice
The recent Federal Budget confirmed that the My Health Record will move to an opt-out model.
While the AMA has drawn attention to the shortcomings of the My Health Record over the past five years, we have always acknowledged the potential for a well-designed and constructed electronic health record to improve patient care.
The AMA originally proposed an opt out model and the Evaluation of the Participation Trials for the My Health Record has demonstrated this is the right approach, with the evaluation report saying opt-out is the only sustainable way forward. Ensuring universal coverage with cross-sector clinical input over time will enhance the value of the My Health Record for patients, their doctors and a patient’s other healthcare providers.
One of the clear outcomes from the trial was that once patients understood the benefits of having a shared electronic health record and the measures in place to protect their information and its use, any concerns they had about privacy and the security of their information were allayed. In fact, the trial highlighted that patients already fully expected their doctors to be sharing their health information with one another.
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- Updated Jun 16 2017 at 11:00 PM
Now it’s time to rate how your medical procedure went
by Alice Uribe
Whitecoat, the controversial health insurer-backed website that has been labelled the "Trip Advisor" of the sector, will be expanded to include patient reviews about the success of procedures performed by doctors, surgeons and other health professionals.
The site, which was set up by the $2.3 billion listed insurer NIB in 2013 and now counts Bupa and HCF as partners, allows consumers to search and pay for health care treatment with their providers that include GPs, surgeons, dentists and optometrists. In April it was announced that former National Australia Bank chief Cameron Clyne would chair the site.
Like review sites in other sectors, Whitecoat gives consumers the ability to rate their experiences with a variety of medical practitioners, but currently this is limited to observations on a doctor's manner or listening skills.
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Holograms put to the test in virtual reality learning
- The Australian
- 12:00AM June 14, 2017
John Ross
The skull hovers motionless in space, sporting engorged blood vessels and surrounded by people in virtual-reality style headsets. A man in a jacket pokes his finger inside the disembodied cranium, pointing out the fatal aneurysm.
It’s not some television drama about hi-tech forensics. It’s an anatomy class at the University of Sydney, where holograms of body parts, organs and cells are part of the teaching experience.
“Virtual reality is an immersive experience, where you are removed from reality as it were,” says Jim Cook, who develops learning technologies for the university. “Augmented reality takes the existing space and moves something on top of it. Mixed reality has the capacity to do both.”
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Queensland government invests in health IT
Budget earmarks $135.4 million in 2016-17
13 June, 2017 16:49
The Queensland government has earmarked $135.4 million for upgrades and new IT systems for its health service in 2016-17.
The state’s budget, handed down today, allocates funds for investment in core Queensland Health infrastructure to support digital hospitals, as well as the replacement and enhancement of core clinical and business systems “to support frontline health service provision, corporate functions and decision making at the point of care”.
“The department takes a strategic view to ensure health infrastructure and healthcare technology and information communication technology strengthens our public health system to meet the growing demand for world class facilities and services,” budget documents state.
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Qld budget commits $135m to health IT upgrades
By Justin Hendry on Jun 13, 2017 5:37PM
But Health not the only winner.
The Queensland government has set aside $135.4 million in its 2017-18 budget to ramp up the state’s delivery of digital healthcare.
The initiative covers investment in Queensland Health’s core infrastructure in order to "support digital hospitals", budget papers state.
It will also allow for the replacement and enhancement of “core clinical and business systems to support frontline health service provision, corporate functions and decision making at the point of care".
The state’s 2015 ehealth investment strategy had identified replacing ageing core systems as crucial for the delivery of future health services. It earmarked $1.2 billion for ICT infrastructure, clinical systems and business systems over five years.
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Aged care sector gets technology how-to guide
A fund jointly resourced by government and aged care organisations to help providers develop and buy technology to integrate into care services is among initiatives proposed in a sector technology plan launched by Minister Ken Wyatt today.
The Technology Roadmap for Aged Care is an initiative of the Aged Care Industry IT Company developed in conjunction with a team from the Medical Device Research Institute at Flinders University, which was appointed in November to undertake a literature review and scoping study.
The roadmap tells the sector how to make technology a core part of aged operations and service delivery and the action needed in the short, medium and long term to address ICT-related shortcomings across key areas including operations, care, information and workforce.
Proposed action includes collaboration with government departments to embed technology capability as a requirement of aged care service delivery and work to facilitate connections across aged care systems.
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Technology ‘will be critical’ to aged care: Wyatt
By Natasha Egan on June 14, 2017 in Government, Industry
Minister Ken Wyatt launches the report yesterday alongside its authors and sector stakeholders
The aged care technology roadmap launched yesterday has been welcomed by government and the opposition for its potential to integrate into the ongoing reform process.
While the sector waits to see whether that leads to financial support, the provider peaks Leading Age Services Australia and Aged and Community Services Australia have identified how government could assist aged care services to realise the report’s goals.
As Australian Ageing Agenda reported yesterday, the Technology Roadmap for Aged Care is an initiative of the Aged Care Industry IT Company that tells the sector how to make technology a core part of operations and service delivery (read that story here).
It aligns with the Aged Care Roadmap developed by the Aged Care Sector Committee.
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My Health Record in Pharmacy – Tweed Heads
July 18 @ 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Digital Health in primary health care is rapidly evolving.
Our guest speakers Dr Shane Jackson (Australian Digital Health Agency) and Mr Tony Browne (North Coast Primary Health Network) will demonstrate the benefits and features of the My Health Record and how this relates to patients, providers and pharmacists.
These workshops are FREE. Attendees can participate in one of the four workshops on offer.
Each workshop commences at 6pm (registrations and dinner) and closes at 8:30pm.
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LiveHire signs up with Australia’s largest public health service provider
14:00 16 Jun 2017
The company’s LiveHire platform is a cloud-based recruitment platform.
Signing with Queensland Health is a significant milestone
LiveHire (ASX:LVH) has launched a “Live Talent Community” for Queensland Health, Australia’s largest public health service provider.
LiveHire’s Talent Community platform provides a cloud-based hiring ecosystem where potential candidates connect with companies by becoming part of a virtual talent community.
Queensland Health has now launched a Live Talent Community for its Rural Nursing & Midwifery workforce.
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Paediatric protocol reduces missed sepsis diagnoses
By Australian Hospital + Healthcare Bulletin Staff
Wednesday, 14 June, 2017
Wednesday, 14 June, 2017
US researchers have developed an electronic sepsis alert, using a combination of vital signs, risk factors and physician judgement, to identify children in a paediatric emergency department with severe sepsis. Their study and an accompanying editorial, published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, claim to have reduced missed sepsis diagnoses by a whopping 76%.
Researchers built a two-stage electronic sepsis alert (ESA) and implemented it into the hospital’s electronic health record (EHR). The first-stage alert is triggered when an age-based elevated heart rate or hypotensive blood pressure is documented in the EHR at any time during the emergency visit. If the patient also has a fever or risk of infection, the alert triggers a series of questions about underlying high-risk conditions, perfusion and mental status. The second-stage alert triggers if there is an affirmative answer to any of these questions. When patients have positive first- and second-stage alerts, a ‘sepsis huddle’ is triggered, which is a brief, focused patient evaluation and discussion with the treatment team, including the emergency physician.
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Report from joint #openEHR / #FHIR meeting
Posted on by Grahame Grieve
Last month, the openEHR and FHIR communities met for a day in Norway. From the openEHR community, Ian McNicoll and Silje Ljosland Bakke were present, and from the FHIR community, Ewout Kramer and myself were present, along with a group of Norwegians who are involved in FHIR and/or openEHR. My thanks to HL7 Norway, DIPS (en) and the Direktoratet for e-helse for collaborating to bring the meeting together.
The overall agenda for the day:
- Welcome, introductions / complaints about the weather (de rigueur, but Norway was lovely, there was even some sun one day)
- Opening presentations from Ian and myself
- Discussion on specific model mapping HL7 FHIR – openEHR
- Discussion on a general form solutions
- Some general questions on HL7 FHIR – openEHR: Mapping, query, Workflow, Pub/Sub, Terminologies, Modeling
And then drinks afterwards, where we solved all the worlds problems (except for a few big ones).
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Health care robotics: the elephant in the room
Authored by Balaji Bikshandi
“You can resist an invading army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come.” Victor Hugo
TODAY I am going to talk about two animals. One of them was thought to exist only in dreams. The other is consciously ignored as non-existent.
The first one is called the “Black Swan”. A radical thinker and popular writer, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, coined this phrase to denote things that we can never predict when they will emerge, but will have a massive impact on the way we live – take for example, the computed tomography scanner, the smartphone or the mobile speed camera.
The term was based on the discovery of black swans, which were previously considered to be non-existent until Australia was discovered. But, we live in the land of black swans. We have embraced the unpredictable – geological separation, evolution in isolation, technological changes and disruptive inventions, such as Wi-Fi, as examples. We invent ways around them.
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Perceived cost of IoT hindering uptake in Australian healthcare: Philips
A study by technology company Philips found that Australia ranks at the bottom in terms of connected care technology adoption.
Misconceptions about the cost of IoT is inhibiting its uptake in Australia's healthcare sector, according to a recent study by Dutch technology company Philips.
Philips' Future Health Index, which surveyed more than 33,000 individuals across 19 countries, found that while 84 percent of Australian healthcare professionals (HCPs) believe "connected care technology" is important in improving treatment and diagnosis of medical conditions, the nation lags behind when it comes to adoption of such technology.
Kevin Barrow, managing director at Philips ANZ, suspects there are two key reasons for this: The first is there is a perception among 55 percent of HCPs and 53 percent of the general population that the integration and adoption of connected care technology will drive up the cost of healthcare in the long term; and the second is because government funding models don't support the delivery of care via IoT technology.
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https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/news-and-events/news/developer-partner-program-launch-save-the-date
Developer Partner Program Launch: Save the Date
The Australian Digital Health Agency is pleased to invite you to the launch of our new developer partner program. The Agency will be introducing the new look developer website and discussing broader developer program activities.
Book this into your diaries – we will be sending out detailed invitations with location and registration details later next week!
This is an excellent opportunity to come and meet some of the key Agency Innovation and Development staff and also network with the digital health community.
When: Tuesday 4 July, 4pm – 7pm AEST
Where: Events will be held in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, with the ability for those in other locations to connect to a live and interactive feed.
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Care concierge services plus telehealth coming to retirement villages
The rollout of NBN is forcing village operators to abandon their copper wire / analogue emergency call systems. They won’t work with NBN and will be turned off by NBN within 18 months of NBN arriving in your area.
This explains two things about why the largest emergency alarm provider to villages, INS, is replacing over 50,000 units for free with existing customers and why they are upgrading their replacement unit to be fully telehealth compatible – because NBN makes telehealth real.
And with telehealth can come full ‘care concierge’ services for village residents and operators – which will change the sector forever.
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NBN users five times more likely to complain about service: survey
Amy Remeikis
Published: June 18 2017 - 12:15AM
National Broadband Network customers are five times more likely to complain about their service than a non-NBN user, as frustrations continue to surround the nation's biggest infrastructure project.
More than 13,406 complaints were made to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman about NBN services in the last financial year, which accounted for 11.9 per cent of all complaints received by the TIO, an increase from 5.4 per cent the year before.
Consumer advocacy groups believe a lot of the disappointment around the NBN could be mitigated with more transparency.
Teresa Corbin, CEO of the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) said clearer information was needed to differentiate between theoretical speeds and what could actually be achieved.
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Enjoy!
David.
"A really, really quiet week as we roll up to the 5th birthday of the myHR / PCEHR. As we all know it has saved many, many lives and is an example or a really great Health IT project brought to us by the combined genius of both the Liberal / National and Labor Governments."
ReplyDeleteThank you for that glowing comment. We will put it to good use in our presentations with the appropriate acknowledgement. ADHA - always at your service.
Sarcasm blossom!
ReplyDeleteLove your work - you idiot!
David.
That would be the 'Your Say, Our Way Productions - My Health Record 'You can opt-out but you can never leave', Australian Tour 2017.
ReplyDeleteAMA - Lessons from the Opt-out trial.
ReplyDeleteI live in a smallish regional community. The GPs at my medical clinic flatly refuse to have anything to do with MyHR. When I unfortunately ended up in the local hospital last year, they didn't give a toss either. Whilst they had the state system to rely on, the one thing all of these medical professionals do is ask you, every time they see you, who you are, why you are here, what your problem is, what meds you take, etc etc. They never, ever, rely on the "computer" to tell them. So much so I get fed up of repeating myself - which was what MyHR was supposed to stop?? - but it never will, because that is how medical professionals work and how their protocols dictate they do, thank goodness.
As for opt-out. Sounds good in theory doesn't it. But according to Madden they will create the record anyway, "just in case you change your mind later on". Which means it will be there for 130 years+ whether you like it or not!!
Effective doctor-patient communication is a central clinical function in building a therapeutic doctor-patient relationship, which is the heart and art of medicine. I wonder, do we really want to become conveyor belt numbers? Where seeing a doctor or visiting A&E is a cold and predefined set of events driven by a machine and a timer? We are humans, communication and interaction with other humans is a complex and in a large part unspoken set of exchanges. Have a think how you might feel if your visit next time did not involve a dialogue and all you heard was the click of a mouse, tapping of keys, and the occasional hmmmmm, and perhaps and exchange between two specialist talking about you as if you were not in the room.
ReplyDeleteThis was never the intent of HIT, but we should be careful that technology does not become a barrier as it is in so many other aspects of life