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 quiet week, waiting for the second session of the Senate Inquiry and to see what comes out of it. This post appears just as the second session starts.
Watch from this page:
https://www.aph.gov.au/Watch_Read_Listen
Watch from this page:
https://www.aph.gov.au/Watch_Read_Listen
The report is due on 8 October, 2018 just so you know.
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Digital health round-up: Australian government proposes changes to MyHealth Record
September, 2018
As Australia signed in new prime minister Scott Morrison following a leadership coup, its beleaguered government is trying to stave off another crisis by publishing legislation designed to reassure the public over the security of its electronic health record system.
Australia wants to introduce an opt-out-based electronic health record system, known as MyHealth Record.
But there are concerns it would be too easy for law enforcement authorities to access the records, which would be kept for 30 years even if citizens asked for them to be deleted.
A new bill proposes that should someone ask for their record to be deleted, the agency will only be allowed to retain the citizen’s name and health identifier, and the name and identifier of the person who asked for the account to be cancelled – such as a parent, for example.
Under the amendments, records will only be accessed under a judicial order, reported the IT website The Register.
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Poll - AMA Portal
My Health Record: staying in or opting out?
- Opting out (70%, 205 Votes)
- Staying in (30%, 86 Votes)
Total Voters: 291
Current Sep 14, 2018
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Apple debuts biggest iPhone yet, health-oriented watch
Looks to get users to upgrade to more expensive devices.
Apple Inc introduced its largest iPhone ever and a new line of watches that can detect heart problems on Wednesday as it looks to get users to upgrade to more expensive devices in the face of stagnant global demand for smartphones.
The relatively small changes to its lineup, following last year's overhauled iPhone X, were widely expected by investors, who sent the company's shares down 1.5 percent.
The strategy has been successful, helping Apple's stock up more than 30 percent this year and making it the first publicly traded U.S. company to hit a market value of more than US$1 trillion.
"It is pretty consistent with past iPhone release days where we see short-term sell the news but things will probably get a lot better in the weeks and months ahead, particularly with a strong holiday sales season expected," said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive of Longbow Asset Management.
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Google to fight 'right to be forgotten' extension across globe
- 10 September 2018
- Written by Sam Varghese
A 2015 order from the French privacy regulator, CNIL, to Google, telling the search engine company to extend the European Union's so-called "right to be forgotten" to all its websites around the globe will be appealed by Google on Tuesday.
The dispute, that will come before the EU's Court of Justice in Luxembourg, is the most prominent case to test the limits of jurisdiction with regards to data, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The initial order to Google came from the EU in 2014 as iTWire reported. A ruling by the Court of Justice in May that year found that European law gave people the right to ask search engines like Google to remove results for queries that included their names.
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Tetris-like program could speed breast cancer detection
Thursday, 6 September 2018
Researchers from the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) are developing a fully-automated medical image analysis program to detect breast tumours. The program uses a unique style to focus on the affected area.
In conjunction with an MRI scan, this autonomous program – using artificial intelligence − employs the traversal movement and style of a retro video game to examine the breast area.
University of Adelaide PhD candidate Gabriel Maicas Suso and Associate Professor Gustavo Carneiro from AIML developed the program.
“Just as vintage video game Tetris manipulated geometric shapes to fit a space, this program uses a green square to navigate and search over the breast image to locate lesions. The square changes to red in colour if a lesion is detected,” says Mr Maicas.Suso.
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NSW Health builds prototype big data platform
Health system performance in its sights.
eHealth NSW has kicked off the development of a prototype big data platform aimed squarely at improving the performance of the state's healthcare system, particularly how services are delivered and envisaged.
The digital arm of NSW Health is half way through a six-month proof of concept project with the Royal North Shore Hospital that it hopes will serve as the basis for an enterprise-wide solution.
NSW Health CIO and eHealth NSW CEO Zoran Bolevich revealed the platform during his keynote at a recent event hosted by the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA).
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Take heart, not all health apps are deadbeats
Despite their bad rap, a new Aussie study shows health apps can be helpful
Antony Scholefield
13th September 2018
Health apps, despite their proliferation, have copped a hiding from researchers in recent years, with little reliable evidence that they work. But a new study might change that view.
The Australian study looked at medication adherence among patients with coronary heart disease using two apps — ‘My heart, my life’ and ‘Medisafe’.
Two groups of about 50 patients were given each app and tracked for three months. Another 50 controls had no app.
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Hospital workers in WA breach patient records 40 times over three years and keep their jobs
Lynne Minion | 14 Sep 2018
Patient records were breached 40 times by hospital workers in Western Australia who accessed confidential information inappropriately from 2014 and 2017, with none of them losing their jobs.
According to WA’s The Sunday Times, which was provided with the concerning stats following numerous requests to the Department of Health, the employees were disciplined with written warnings, counselling, a formal reprimand, training and an “improvement action”.
Fourteen of the breaches occurred at Perth’s South Metropolitan Health Service, which includes the state’s flagship Fiona Stanley Hospital.
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Digital rights groups call for government to scrap surveillance bill
Proposed legislation ‘effectively enacts insecurity by design’
A coalition of digital rights groups has called for the government’s draft surveillance bill to be scrapped wholesale, saying that it “effectively enacts insecurity by design” and will create “extremely broad powers with almost no oversight without any substantive justification”.
The government has argued that its proposal to increase the ability of police and national security organisations to access online services will not weaken the security of services relied on by millions of Australians.
The exposure draft of the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Bill 2018 would create new powers for law enforcement agencies to demand tech companies cooperate with requests for assistance and in some circumstances even build new tools that would allow for user security to be bypassed during investigations.
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- Sep 12 2018 at 10:13 AM
Is AI funding overheated? Beware the hype about artificial intelligence.
by James Titcomb
In 1964, an American computer scientist named John McCarthy set up a research centre at California's Stanford University to explore an exciting new discipline: artificial intelligence.
McCarthy had helped coin the term several years earlier, and interest in the field was growing fast. By then, the first computer programs that could beat humans at chess had been developed, and thanks to plentiful government grants at the height of the Cold War, AI researchers were making rapid progress in other areas such as algebra and language translation.
When he set up his laboratory, McCarthy told the paymasters who had funded it that a fully intelligent machine could be built within a decade. Things did not pan out. Nine years after McCarthy's promises, and after millions more had been ploughed into research around the world, the UK government asked the British mathematician Sir James Lighthill to assess whether it was all worth it.
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ACCC wants public input on Consumer Data Right rules
- 12 September 2018
- Written by Peter Dinham
The Australian Compeition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is seeking public submisssions on the Consumer Data Right (CDR) compliance rules currently being developed, and which will allow consumers to require their bank to share their data with accredited service providers.
The consumer watchdog issues a notice on Wednesday seeking feedback from consumers, businesses and community organisations on the approach and positions the ACCC proposes to take in setting up the rules for the CDR.
As part of the consultstion process the ACCC will be holding a number of stakeholder forums seeking input on the Rules Framework.
The CDR is a competition and consumer reform announced by the Australian Government in May 2018 and the ACCC has been delegated the lead role in rule-making, consumer education and enforcement.
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DTA embeds proof-of-life test in Govpass to thwart ID fraud
Australia gets a national selfie check.
The Digital Transformation Agency has picked digital security firm Idemia to provide a crucial liveness detection test for the government’s soon-to-be piloted Govpass platform to prevent the creation of fraudulent digital identities.
Previously known as Morpho, the French firm has been tasked with weeding out fakes, impostors and pretenders that, if allowed through. could compromise the integrity of the government’s single authentication credential known as myGovID.
The government is hoping that millions of of Australians will self-enroll to its new opt-in scheme, a process that offers big savings over traditional over-the-counter checks. But to get that process right, it first needs software that can tell if a person is there for real.
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Chronic disease care plan revamp in the works
The MBS Review Taskforce is proposing to cut rebates for GP management plans and increase funding for follow-up
12th September 2018
Rebates for preparing chronic disease patient care plans would be cut in favour of bigger government spending on follow-up consults, under a draft proposal from the MBS Review Taskforce.
The review’s general practice and primary care committee has asked the AMA and RACGP to comment on a draft plan to revamp GP Medicare items, including a ban on a level B attendance for any consult less than six minutes and a new level E item.
But the report remains confidential and will not be shared with the broader profession or the public unless the taskforce approves it for release at its next meeting on 18 September.
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Chief Digital Officer
Salary: N/A
Location: Australia
Company: Australian Digital Health Agency
Chief Digital Officer
Reporting to the CEO, the Chief Digital Officer leads the Innovation and Development team and is responsible for the coordinating the strategic, innovation and technical aspects of the digital health programme. This includes the following key aspects - Strategic leadership coordination and management of the digital health strategy and associated work programme, open innovation, design authority and design integration, specifications, product development, benefits evaluation programmes of work and provision of PMO services.
Furthermore, the position is responsible for leading a forward thinking approach to every aspect of the Digital Health strategy. This includes overviewing the current programs underway as well as being the “visionary” on the future direction of the Digital strategy delivered by the Agency. Stakeholder engagement both internally and externally is a critical aspect of the role.
Furthermore, the position is responsible for leading a forward thinking approach to every aspect of the Digital Health strategy. This includes overviewing the current programs underway as well as being the “visionary” on the future direction of the Digital strategy delivered by the Agency. Stakeholder engagement both internally and externally is a critical aspect of the role.
This position is at the same time a strategic and ‘hands on role’ focused on deliverables against agreed timeframes. An open communication style with transparency and clarity at the heart of all programs is essential to succeed in the role.
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Media release: Global Digital Health leaders meet in London to collaborate on the evolving digital health landscape
9 September 2018: Digital health leaders have recently come together in London at the third Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP) summit, to collaborate and share their experiences, and to support the improved delivery of digital health services around the world. The leaders represented 23 countries and territories and the World Health Organization (WHO). Following the summit on 3-4 September, representatives attended the Health and Care Innovation Expo on 5-6 September and the NHS Digital showcase on 7 September in Manchester.
Chair of the Global Digital Health Partnership and Chief Executive of the Australian Digital Health Agency, Mr Tim Kelsey commented on the significance of the partnership for countries around the world.
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Why every GP should have this app
It's a great addition to your armamentarium
Dr Rob Park
14th September 2018
PRODUCT REVIEW: HOT APPS
I’ll be honest, I was really excited about this app. The online version of the eTG was a steady companion as a medical student.
As a GP, these guidelines are still available when I need quick, high-quality and reliable therapeutic guidance.
And now I can do this on my mobile.
The eTG complete mobile app is as streamlined as I would expect from a company that maintains high standards as its core business.
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NSW birth certificates, property titles and motor rego headed for the blockchain
Secure Logic reveals ambitions for blockchain platform
Secure Logic, makers of the blockchain platform underpinning the NSW Government’s digital driver’s licence pilot, has revealed its ambitions for the technology across a bevy of state government services.
The Sydney-based tech firm today launched TrustGrid, which it describes as a “secure, decentralised and immutable ledger of transactions.” The platform allows agencies and organisations such as hospitals and financial institutions to “create private consortiums of trust entities on the fly”.
The technology powered the NSW Government’s digital driver’s licence pilot earlier this year, during which 1,400 Dubbo residents used their digital ID in roadside police checks, pubs and liquor stores.
A second pilot will take place in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs – covering Bondi, Bondi Junction, Bronte, Clovelly, Coogee, Randwick and Waverley – in November.
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Secure Logic says its new blockchain platform will 'improve delivery of government services'
- 10 September 2018
- Written by Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sydney-based tech solutions provider Secure Logic says its new "TrustGrid" platform that will help combat identity related crimes and underpin the digitisation of government services, like motor registration, property titles and birth certificates.
Secure Logic says "TrustGrid is an advanced blockchain solution that delivers a secure, decentralised and immutable ledger of transactions. It enables government agencies and vetted private organisations such as hospitals and financial institutions to create private consortiums of trust entities on the fly.
"Earlier this year, the technology powered the NSW Government’s digital driver’s licence pilot with 1,400 Dubbo residents and is set to be used again as a second pilot takes place in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs in November, where residents will be able to show digital identification in pubs and clubs and for roadside police checks."
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Australia, world hit by sharp rise in mobile fraud attacks
- 13 September 2018
- Written by Peter Dinham
Fraud attacks on mobile transactions in Australia have increased 26% this year compared to 2017, with a new cybercrime report also revealing that attacks have risen sharply around the world.
According to the report from security firm ThreatMetrix - a LexisNexis Risk Solutions Company - mobile fraud has reached 150 million global attacks in first half of 2018 with attack rates rising 26% year-over-year in Australia alone.
The report also reveals that Asia Pacific countries including Australia, Japan and Singapore featured in the top five target destinations among countries perpetrating the highest number of attacks globally - UK, US, China and Canada.
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CSIRO using serverless compute to analyse the human genome
The CSIRO is using AWS Lamba to allow analysis of the 20 exabytes of data coming from genomics every year.
By 2025, it is estimated that 50 percent of world's population will have had their genome sequenced, which according to Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) transformational bioinformatics team leader Dr Denis Bauer means that genomic data will be larger than the data held by Twitter, YouTube, and astronomy combined.
Genomics is the study of information encoded in an individual's DNA, allowing researchers to study how genes impact health and disease.
The genome holds the blueprint for every cell in an individual's body and with so much information encoded in the genome it comes as no surprise Australia's peak research organisation is investing heavily in exploring its possibilities.
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Orion shareholders to vote on Rhapsody sale this month
Tuesday, 11 September 2018 (0 Comments)
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
Orion shareholders will vote on plans to sell the company’s Rhapsody division to Hg at an annual shareholders’ meeting later this month.
The Notice of Meeting for the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting details Orion’s plans to split up the business, selling Rhapsody and 25 per cent of its population health management business for $225 million.
Orion will maintain full control of its hospitals division and has recently announced a new version of its hospital information system, Enterprise.
Rhapsody is Orion Health’s integration engine and is an integral part of the company’s suite of applications used by health providers across New Zealand.
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National digital ID deal ends isolation
- 12:00AM September 14, 2018
A landmark agreement between the federal, state and territory governments to end the “isolation” of digital transformation projects will be ratified in Sydney today in a deal that will help develop a national “digital identity” with biometric scanning.
The inaugural meeting of the Australian Digital Council, chaired by Minister for Human Services and Digital Transformation Michael Keenan, will be opened by Scott Morrison with all state and territory ministers present, except Victoria’s.
Mr Keenan said governments had often “jealously guarded” their data and digital projects, which made no sense in a federation where Australians and businesses often had to deal with multiple levels of bureaucracy each month.
“Governments have tended to work on their digital projects in isolation and, in some cases, in competition with each other,” Mr Keenan said.
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https://www.smh.com.au/technology/inclusive-or-invasive-digital-id-stirs-debate-20180914-p503x2.html
Inclusive or invasive? Digital ID stirs debate
By Carey L. Biron
14 September 2018 — 9:41pm
Washington: Digital identity systems are a "revolutionary" way to provide the world's most vulnerable with access to essential services, but steps must be taken to protect privacy, philanthropists, businesses and charities said on Friday.
More than 1 billion people globally have no way of proving their identity, according to the World Bank, which experts say excludes them from basic services such as education and healthcare.
But technologies like blockchain and mobile phones can support private digital identity systems that can be accessed anywhere, said Dakota Gruener of the ID2020 Alliance, a public-private consortium promoting the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of providing legal identity for everyone.
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Govts agree to unite on digital, data
New ministerial council born.
Federal, state and territory governments will convene at the first ever sitting of the Australian Digital Council to commit to crucial new cross-jurisdiction agreements around digital services and data.
Ministers from all eight Australian governments will converge on Sydney today for the first of what will become a biannual inter-jurisdictional meeting designed to improving collaboration.
Chaired by the Federal Minister for Human Services and Digital Transformation Michael Keenan, the Council is expected to agree to focus on accelerating the development of digital services and improving data sharing across borders by working together.
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Mobile-enabled InterSystems TrakCare supports better healthcare decision making
New mobile user interface designed to improve electronic medical record adoption and patient safety, speed clinical workflows and improve the patient experience
SYDNEY, Australia, September 12, 2018 – InterSystems, a global leader in health information technology, today announced that the InterSystems TrakCare® unified healthcare information system has added a mobile, touchscreen-enabled user interface to optimise the user experience and other enhancements that support better healthcare decision making.
TrakCare’s mobile-enabled user interface supports streamlined electronic medical record (EMR) workflows and delivers context-rich, concise information wherever and whenever it is needed. Clinical notes can be created with a few swipes and taps, images and barcodes captured via camera, and additional information captured via voice.
Using mobile devices at the point of care can support doctors and nurses to make better decisions and allows them to capture and access accurate data more easily and quickly. This promotes EMR adoption, supports patient safety, speeds up clinical workflows, creates a better patient experience, and allows other carers to make better decisions as well.
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Nvidia's Clara smartens up medical instruments
- 13 September 2018
- Written by Stephen Withers
Nvidia's new Clara platform is aimed at applying the power of AI and modern graphics technologies to medical instruments.
Combining Nvidia's Xavier module with Turing GPUs and a new software development kit, Nvidia Clara is intended as a platform that can take the massive amounts of data generated by medical instruments, such as ultrasound and X-ray machines, visualising it, and potentially recommending actions.
It was first revealed as a development project at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference earlier this year.
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Apple Watch announcements proved more exciting than new iPhones, again
By Peter Wells
13 September 2018 — 1:33pm
During Apple’s event last September, despite the iPhone's dramatic redesign, the standout announcement for me were the changes to the Apple Watch. Bringing a 4G antenna to the Watch was the first step in letting this tiny computer one day stand alone, and not simply be a satellite to the phone.
Once again this year the Apple Watch was most improved in the line-up, with more noticeable changes to hardware, a greater focus on health, and a promise of a more powerful ecosystem of apps with watchOS 5. Jeff Williams, Apple’s chief finance officer summed up the pillars of the new watch as “staying connected, living an active life and looking after your health”.
The Watch simply looks better, with a larger display, easier to read fonts, an overall thinner design and new live widgets that give the user so much more information in a single glance. A watch is too small to interact with most of the time, so you want it to always have the information you need, waiting for you.
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UNSW researchers find FTTP NBN worth the extra billions
Economists tally social costs of policy shift.
Australia would have seen stronger social benefits by sticking to a majority fibre NBN model, with UNSW researchers estimating the uplift from FTTP would have outweighed the additional outlay.
The researchers - UNSW Professor of Economics Richard Holden, UNSW Professor of Law Rosalind Dixon, and economics consultant Alex Rosenberg - launched a paper [pdf] last night that proposed a new way of calculating returns on government investment.
They propose the use of what they call ‘social return accounting’, pitched as a way to measure how much value a project generates beyond purely economic concerns.
However, what is likely to be of significant interest is the application of social return accounting to the NBN, and what Australia lost by moving away from Labor’s mostly fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) model.
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NBN Co agrees to improve wholesale deals with RSPs
- 12 September 2018
- Written by Sam Varghese
NBN Co, the company rolling out Australia's national broadband network, has given the competition watchdog a court-enforceable undertaking to improve its wholesale arrangements with retail service providers within three months.
The undertaking was given in the context of the ACCC’s inquiry into NBN wholesale service standards which was begun in late 2017 to determine whether NBN wholesale service standards are appropriate, and to consider whether regulation is necessary to improve consumer experiences.
A statement from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said the company had offered the undertaking after being shown an interim access determination that the ACCC proposed to make.
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Enjoy!
David.
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