Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Sunday, August 20, 2017

AusHealthIT Poll Number 394 – Results – 20th August, 2017.

Here are the results of the poll.

Do You Anticipate The New National Digital Health Strategy Will Be Successfully Implemented By The ADHA And Achieve Its Stated Objectives?

Yes 1% (1)

Probably 1% (2)

Probably Not 75% (128)

No Chance 23% (40)

I Have No Idea 0% (0)

Total votes: 171

The numbers speak for themselves. The vast majority (98%) are not all that confident in the new Strategy. The ADHA should take this as the readership not being convinced of the quality of what we have been told so far and wanting to be convinced that the plan can actually make a difference.

I would be keen to hear comments on the result.

A huge turnout of votes!

Again, many, many thanks to all those that voted!

David.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

My reservations stem from a persecution the ADHA seems rudderless, secretive, and just random in what it is doing. Apart from the MyHR opt out nothing in the rules which underpin its formation seem to be part of its objectives, indeed quite the opposite. Even when they do venture away from sales and marketing and press ganging subscriptions to the MyHR it is clear they have limited capability to understand or define the problem. The approach seems to be to throw the towel in and let others sort it out, which in isolation seems reasonable but lift it up to a national holistic level they are heading us towards a cliff. Rather than build on the past ten years the policy seems to be burn everything (except the MyHR) and start again.

There is also the transparency issue, rumours of a dysfunctional organisation with competition going executives off doing whatever, and that barrage of noise from the CEO which over time has become repetitive nonsense further adding to my doubts much will come from ADHA until it all collapses in a expensive and nationally embarrassing heaps.

Anonymous said...

They seem to have overlooked Aged care which speaks volumes. I agree the lack of transparency and over use of rhetoric does the board no favours. I have no sense there is any authenticity in all this. I guess you lost authenticity when you aim is to secure funding for a rotten apple.

Anonymous said...

I struggle finding the care factor David, I find nothing in the strategy or the ADHA that sparks any level of interest and no Wow factor. I see no real commitment and the only thing that seems to bring people together is the occasional need to return to various governments for funding. It is a bit sad.

Anonymous said...

That was a difficult question to answer: The problem is, how do you implement a strategy that has no plan? Which is a bit of a surprise as the place seems full of project managers.

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

For those who haven’t read the ADHA strategy, or may have missed it, it contains an interesting paragraph:

"Learning from others

Australia is innovating strongly in a few select areas in the digital health space; through this Strategy we seek to become a world leader in digital health. By developing meaningful partnerships between industry, healthcare consumers, and the research sector, and working with our international partners to share our lessons and insights, there is an opportunity to accelerate our progress in digital health."

It is worth asking the question “Are other governments adopting a similar strategy?”

This site gives some useful clues:

http://international.commonwealthfund.org/features/ehrs/

The short answer is No. The rest of the world is facilitating access, to a lesser or greater extent, to existing clinical systems. Most countries, including Australia, are trying to improve interoperability and secure messaging but Australia is the only country that is creating a system which requires significant input from patients, which patients can control access to some but not all data, and which is outside the normal healthcare environment (i.e. the Federal Government does not provide point-of-care to patents). Oh, and costs a fortune to build and maintain and is struggling to find acceptance by the health care community.

What does the "Learning from others” paragraph actually mean then?

Look at the phrase “working with our international partners to share our lessons and insights”. The strategy doesn’t say who the “international partners” are, but it strongly suggests that ADHA believes it has nothing to learn from the rest of the world and that My Health Record is the way of the future. It says “share our lessons with” not, “listen to and learn from”.

What does the rest of the world think? Based upon the web site, everyone else is taking a totally different approach. We know that some, such as the UK, have tried national, summary systems and failed. The UK and countries such as Sweden are facilitating access to existing clinical systems. This approach is cheap, inherently resilient, less of a privacy invasive honey-pot and not subject to either the indifference or vagaries of patients

Australia is already a world leader. It is the only country that is developing a secondary, summary, unreliable, potentially dangerous, and clinically useless, privacy time bomb.

Anonymous said...

Having observed the current CEO for ADHA, I wager that Bernard is more about his own need to be relevant and search for somewhere to move onto than anything else. I am pretty sure from friends and colleagues internationally the current trajectory Australian is taking itself is of interest from an amusement and bewilderment viewpoint only.

Anonymous said...

3:57 PM A curiously bizarre comment if I may be so bold.
First, you appear to be suggesting Bernard should be leaving Digital Health behind and move on to something else to satisfy a need to be relevant. I have always found his comments over some years to be particularly balanced, informative and relevant. It seems to me his motives for making his views known are focused on raising issues that are undermining the future of Digital Health and wasting huge amounts of taxpayers money.

To put your second comment in perspective. You appear to be suggesting your friends and colleagues internationally regard ADHA as a joke, nothing more, and I agree with you. That being so, if ADHA is 'the joke' then be very grateful people like Bernard are willing to step up to the plate to let the problems be known. So too, David More on this, his, blog.

You cannot have it both ways dear 3:57. I respectfully suggest you take a step back, look carefully at what you have said, and let us know in clear English what you were really trying to say.

Anonymous said...

3:57 PM - What have you "observed (about) the current CEO for ADHA?
... that leads you to say "the current trajectory Australia is taking" ..... is amusing and bewildering to your "friends and colleagues internationally"?