This release appeared from the AMA last week, covering their Submission to the Senate Inquiry.
My Health Record Has Huge Potential
05 Oct 2018
In order to restore public confidence in My Health Record, it is critical that privacy issues are addressed.
That was one take home message the AMA has provided the Government in its submission to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee Inquiry into the My Health Record System.
The submission noted, however, that the additional privacy protections set out in the proposed My Health Records Amendment (Strengthening Privacy) Bill 2018, go a long way towards achieving this.
This comes as a direct result of AMA President Dr Tony Bartone securing a commitment from Health Minister Greg Hunt to fix the privacy concerns.
The Bill substantially reduces any discretion that the My Health Record System Operator has to disclose health information in the My Health Record. The limits are substantially tighter than the controls that apply under the Commonwealth’s Privacy Act 1988 to patient data stored in the clinician’s own patient records.
The AMA would like My Health Record to succeed because the clinical benefits are considerable, and it has the capacity to save lives. But the system will need to be continually improved.
The AMA’s submission notes the strengths of the system and points to potential benefits of My Health Record.
“Treating clinicians need to have access to a detailed and accurate clinical patient history to provide the best possible care,” the submission states.
“The siloed nature of the Australian healthcare system and the localised storage of patient records in their doctor’s own patient records, compromises the flow of patient information between healthcare settings, and between healthcare practitioners.
“Many of the greatest failures in patient care and safety result when patients are required to move across the health system, but their clinical information does not follow them.
“The My Health Record has the potential to circumvent these limitations to ensure clinically important patient information is available at the point of care, irrespective of the health care setting and the location of the treating doctor.
“The result is better connected care, reduced medical harm from avoidable medication complications and allergic reactions. As the My Health Record matures, and patient participation levels increase, the record may also generate health system efficiencies by eliminating diagnostic and pathology tests currently duplicated because test results are not available to the treating doctor.
“Not only is duplication wasteful, it is detrimental to the patient as duplicated tests expose them to additional radiation from X-rays and CT Scans.”
Increased patient engagement in their own healthcare is another way the My Health Record can improve quality of care, according to the AMA.
Research indicates 40 to 80 per cent of medical information provided by healthcare practitioners is forgotten immediately by patients.
“If patients have access to their clinical data in their My Health Record, they are more likely to understand their health conditions, adhere to treatment advice and engage more actively with their treating clinicians in their ongoing care,” the submission states.
“This will also assist in increasing overall patient health literacy, which will improve long-term health outcomes and indeed improve prevention and education activities.”
The AMA also points out that inclusion of patient nominated advanced care planning documents in the My Health Record increases the likelihood emergency treatments will align with patient preference if they have lost the ability to speak for themselves, or have lost decision-making capacity.
“If the benefits of My Health Record are to be fully realised, the My Health Record system will need to become self-sustaining,” the submission states.
CHRIS JOHNSON
The AMA’s submission can be found at: https://ama.com.au/submission/ama-submission-senate-community-affairs-references-committee-inquiry-my-health-record.
Here is the link:
I think it is important to read these sort of releases carefully because they are part of a larger political discussion with the Government and the AMA is keen to keep its powder dry for the larger fights they need to have on practitioner payment etc.
So what do we read:
1. “My Health Record Has Huge Potential” – you wonder how they can know that but also the heading implies that right now it is not much use.
2. “The submission noted, however, that the additional privacy protections set out in the proposed My Health Records Amendment (Strengthening Privacy) Bill 2018, go a long way towards achieving this.” Doesn’t that mean they are not happy so far and more needs to be done?
3. “The AMA would like My Health Record to succeed because the clinical benefits are considerable, and it has the capacity to save lives. But the system will need to be continually improved.” Meaning the system is a fair way from where it needs to be?
4. “Treating clinicians need to have access to a detailed and accurate clinical patient history to provide the best possible care,” The #myHR is hardly the place you look for such current, accurate, detailed information. The GPs local system is far better for that!
5. “The My Health Record has the potential to circumvent these limitations to ensure clinically important patient information is available at the point of care, irrespective of the health care setting and the location of the treating doctor.” This assumes all the treating practitioners have access to the #myHR have updated it and so on. The evidence this is happening is pretty scant and without a lot of ongoing payments will almost certainly never happen.
6. “If the benefits of My Health Record are to be fully realised, the My Health Record system will need to become self-sustaining,” I wonder what is meant here – more practitioner payments maybe? Again the benefits are all future tense.
So basically they see the #myHR as a system which is still incomplete, unproven and needs a lot more work – associated with more payments for the practitioners to use it.
As I said this is a politically driven response that raises more issues and expresses hope not confidence.
David.
10 comments:
This was put on Seek on 18 Sep, closing date 25 Sep.
They are looking for a techo guru to fix their problems.
They say:"You will be required to provide technical leadership and guidance and will have experience translating business requirements from stakeholders into technical solution options whilst maintaining the integrity of business critical systems."
so it would seem they already have the business requirements sorted...
Australian Digital Health Agency.
Technical Solution Architect
https://www.seek.com.au/job/37248480
Tasked with improving health outcomes for Australians through the delivery of digital healthcare systems and the national digital health strategy for Australia, the Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) is responsible for national digital health services and systems, with a focus on engagement, innovation and clinical quality and safety. Our focus is on putting data and technology safely to work for patients, consumers and the healthcare professionals who look after them.
The Agency is currently seeking people with a desire to make a difference to health outcomes, who are passionate about the use of digital health to meet these goals and have the relevant experience to deliver solutions in a highly complex stakeholder and technical environment.
Better use of data and technology can help people live healthier, happier and more productive lives. Digital health can make a real difference to people’s health by giving them greater control and better access to information.
Tasked with improving health outcomes for Australians through the delivery of digital healthcare systems and the national digital health strategy for Australia, the Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) commenced operations on 1 July 2016.
The Agency is responsible for national digital health services and systems, with a focus on engagement, innovation, clinical quality, and safety. Our focus is on putting data and technology safely to work for patients, consumers and the healthcare professionals who look after them.
Reporting to the Lead Architect in the Innovation and Development division we require a Technical Solution Architect with an in-depth understanding of technology and demonstrable experience delivering end to end architecture across large and complex implementations.
You will be required to provide technical leadership and guidance and will have experience translating business requirements from stakeholders into technical solution options whilst maintaining the integrity of business critical systems.
You will have the ability to proactively drive and guide agreed deliverables and have proven experience in presenting solutions to varied audiences and ensuring understanding, through the use of your excellent written and verbal communication skills.
For this position you will require a bachelor degree or equivalent along with a minimum of 7 years’ experience in IT architectural and design roles. In addition, you must have proven experience as a either a solution architect or in a senior technical role that has worked on large IT projects, analysing, isolating and interpreting business needs to develop technical solutions. Hands on technical problem solving abilities, and in-depth knowledge of web based systems, service based and enterprise application architecture will be key to your success in this position.
Is this the real future of digital health?
Amazon Patents New Alexa Feature That Knows When You're ill and Offers To Sell You Medicine
https://science.slashdot.org/story/18/10/10/1552229/amazon-patents-new-alexa-feature-that-knows-when-youre-ill-and-offers-to-sell-you-medicine
"Amazon has patented a new version of its virtual assistant Alexa which can automatically detect when you're ill and offer to sell you medicine.
From a report:
The proposed feature would analyse speech and identify other signs of illness or emotion. One example given in the patent is a woman coughing and sniffling while she speaks to her Amazon Echo device. Alexa first suggests some chicken soup to cure her cold, and then offers to order cough drops on Amazon. If Amazon were to introduce this technology, it could compete with a service planned by the NHS.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said earlier this year that the NHS was working on making information from its NHS Choices online service available through Alexa. Amazon's system, however, doesn't need to ask people whether they're ill -- it would just know automatically by analyzing their speech.
Adverts for sore throat products could be automatically played to people who sound like they have a sore throat, Amazon's patent suggests."
Maybe that's why Tim has been overseas so much recently......
“If the benefits of My Health Record are to be fully realised, the My Health Record system will need to become self-sustaining,” the submission states.
I assume that means My Health Record should have more benefits than costs? That should make for an interesting calculation if they include all the costs, not just the government's.
Maybe the AMA has read all of the submissions and has learned a thing or 2 about the lack of benefits and the huge costs and risks, especially to its members.
The ADHA has just announce Secure Messaging is now production ready prime time, able to send and receive a number of payload formats and presumably accepting any old cert. The AMA I am sure has welcomed this news and that surely marks to end of the MyHR need.
"...able to send and receive a number of payload formats"
and the number is? and the target number is?
@ 10:52 PM - https://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/rip-fax-successful-secure-messaging-trials-solve-final-problems-heralding-fax-free-future
In its trials with Telstra and HealthLink, ADHA has overcome two final hurdles to making different platforms interoperable: universal message formats and the ability to search multiple databases of healthcare providers.
“The industry has agreed to the same interpretations and allowed their systems to display messages in a number of formats: RTF, PDF, CDA, and HL7 version 2,” McMahon said.
If they think the final problems have been solved in successful proof of concept trials, they will be sadly mistaken.
Once again, their scope is limited to technology. The real problems are outside the technology.
Well they need something to distract from the MyHR and a change is narrative. With Labor now stating they want to rewrite the MyHR Act it is a bit unfair to continue to conscript the population into a system when the rules around that system are now so uncertain it is impossible to make an informed choice. Any fallout is now clearly on all of parliament.
There's echos of the banking Royal Commission. The government didn't want it. Now its been had, the failings are so obvious, it's stopped being under the radar.
ADHA has published three weeks of statistics in about 7 days.
Here's an interesting graph.
http://www.drbrd.com/docs/myhr/SHS_Jan_2018_to_7_October.jpg
It seems to indicate that the more publicity ADHA generates re opting-out, the fewer Shared Health Summaries get uploaded.
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