Besides the amazing lack of insight of the Liberal Senators regarding the issues being raised by witnesses at the Senate Inquiry Into The myHR yesterday afternoon there were two figures that struck me.
First was the admission that at least 900,000 citizens had opted out - as those in the paper based opt-out channel were yet to be counted and would add some more.
Then Mr Kelsey said that was about 3% of the population who could opt-out - there being that choice for all those that had an Individual Health Identifier - an IHI. He then said there were about 28 million of those.
Given there is only a population of 25 million in Australia, who are the other 3 million? Some are visitors etc. but I bet there are all sorts of duplicates, dead people and so on as well, in what can't be a very accurate IHI database. I wonder is this due to under-resourcing of the areas that maintain the IHI system.
It seems the ADHA really does not even know who it is actually going to 'opt-out' with any certainty and that will be a real ongoing data integrity issue.
What a mess. And the admission of the lack of a Business Case etc. for the whole thing just adds to the sense of ad-hoc-ery!
David.
p.s.
And the quote of the session - Paul Shetler - "The myHealthRecord in not your health record, it is a Government Health Record about you." Not sure many want one of those?
D.
20 comments:
Agree David, with all their resources and access to information they fell well short. I hate to suggest it, but for $ 550,000 per year all expenses paid, not sure we are getting value as tax payers or patients. The Departments reputation and that of the Minister is being eroded at a rapid pace by the ADHA.
Value..... certainly not a case of thinking like a patient, acting like a taxpayer, as Mr Kelsey likes to quote..... In both cases there is disappointment.
I can shed some light on the 3 million "extra souls" who will apparently be given a MyHR...
My 36yo daughter has NOT lived in Australia for 18 years.... but when I received a replacement Medicare card some years back, she had mysteriously been put back on mine, as a dependent!
Didn't think too much about it at the time - a moot issue since she's not here using Medicare - but she has no plans to return other than on a visit.
Now I realise that she is going to be automatically issued with a MyHR (I assume she popped back onto my card when everyone received an IHI - they wouldn't have found anything else to tag hers to...)
I have investigated, and it seems I am unable to cancel it, because I am not her. Nor could she produce any acceptable identification as she hasn't held an Oz passport in years...
So yes, this is a total mess...
The business case stuff was really... interesting?
Labor's Singh pressed on it very hard in a way that perhaps indicates this was the opening move in a larger game.
It would be grossly incompetent to not have a business case at the start, or be updating it or redoing it has time goes on. And if there was one at the start, the current ALP deputy leader would have seen it - so Labor would know full well if it exists or not.
Then of course a quick Google turns up the phrase 'business case' in multiple ADHA documents.
I think it's pretty clear that multiple business cases exist - the cabinet-in-confidence defence might work, but pretending they don't surely won't.....
Wonder how such a mess will play out when identies are stolen and used for criminal activities.
I had expected the ADHA would have made a written submission but they do not seem to have done so. Why?
I am told they have done one - but not published yet.
Tim is said not to be happy about that.
David.
The Senators have assumed that the approach adopted to creating a My Health Record is sound.
They have failed to understand that there are fundamental underlying problems in the approach which necessitate going back to the drawing board.
The Departments' submission is nothing more than a cut and paste repeating the same messages that it has beeen pushing for over a decade. Their is not a skerrick of evidence to pooint to a change in attitude or any new thinking about the project. It's business as usual - nothing wrong with what we are doing, all is well in their eyes.
The aim is to make the Senators believe this and secure their recommendation to forge ahead and maintain the status quo for a few more years.
Where is the evidence?
.... that the system is useful?
.... that the system is saving lives?
... that doctors and patients are using it?
Big fat unsubstantited claims continue to be made about the wonders of this system without any evidence to substantiate them and not one Senator has demanded that they be backed up with somme solid evidence. The reason is because the Senators do not understand that there is no evidence.
Remove the Medicare and PBS 'numbers' from the My Heaalth Recod statistics as they are artificially concocted to make it look as though the system is a great success and what do you end up with?
Evidence that points to lack of use and a totally failed IT project.
Tim is said not to be happy about that. Oh poor Tim, I can only imagine the tripe his submission will hold. It is clear he needs to depart, a massive failure, not skilled to take the work forward.
The unintended consequences will be that the more they push doctors to use the system the the more obvious it will be that it is useless.
Nobody in government has acknowledged the asymmetry of the thing.
GPs will be reducing the time they have to attend to patients to create event summaries and transfer them from their clinical systems (which deliver benefits to GPs and patients) to the government's myhr which delivers no benefits to GPs and very little benefit to patients.
Or: - GPS have costs and get no benefits.
In fact, as I pointed out in my submission, there are multiple alternatives to everything the myhr is claimed to deliver but which are better, cheaper and do not involve giving data to the government.
You can fool some of the GPs some of the time, and all the GPs some of the time, but you won't fool all the GPs all the time.
I suspect there'll be another unintended consequence.... greater reluctance to participate in medical research projects.
There's a loss of trust, and that will no doubt hurt some worthwhile projects. But I for one will be more reluctant to become involved in future.
I am sure the Department would have a hand in the ADHA submission being held back.
The ADHA submission is up now. It is certainly long. Probably to long and not really the best use of the committees time or the opportunity.
The ADHA submission is now available.
In a consumer driven market where the Government itself is requiring people to pay more and more for their healthcare, the MyHR provides no valuable service, is restricting consumer choice and would appear to constrain healthcare organisations from providing personalised services. So we have to pay more, we are reduced in seeking the best service offerings at the most competitive prices, the software industry could be hamstrung in developing clinical and consumer driven services, limiting their ability to tap into the global opportunities to generate real income for Australia and create jobs.
Where is the ACCC and others? Can they not see the Government is creating a cartel?
Health record system means 'control': Hunt.
That sums it up, they question is who controls who and what.
Hunt has exposed himself as a weak opportunistic politician, one that was easily manipulated. Tim Kelsey and his band of executives demonstrated that the communication campaign has failed, it was targeted at one mans ego not the Australian public. The numbers speak for themselves, they can hide behind questionable % statistics but it is clear a large component of engaged citizens have clearly seen through the nonsense.
The ADHA submission says "My eHealth Record was also recognised globally as a World Health Organisation case study in its report Global diffusion of eHealth: Making universal health coverage achievable4 which described the record as an “invaluable resource” and emphasised the benefits to the health care needs of the indigenous population."
Considering it was Australia that provided the case study and all teh opinions, it is not surprising that it had lots of good words to say.
It's a bit much for ADHA to claim that it has been recognised as an “invaluable resource”.
It's a bit like writing an article, having it published in the media and then claiming that there is widespread support because of the article.
More deception and exaggeration.
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