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
It almost went through to the keeper but the ADHA has sprung all those unsuspecting citizens with a Government held record of their health information.
Do you reckon the ADHA will tell us about how many deletions and additions they have each week. The should among a wide range of other useful metrics.
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Log in to your My Health Record
All Australians now have a My Health Record, unless they chose to opt out before 31 January 2019. Log in to your My Health Record to view and manage your health information.
You can decide what you want to include and start sharing health information with your treating healthcare providers.
To access your My Health Record online, you need to have a myGov account and to link it to your record.
Video: How to access your My Health Record online
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The agency in charge of the My Health Record had planned a $100,000 training event at the SCG
Sue Dunlevy, National Health Reporter, News Corp Australia Network
March 1, 2019 12:00am
Subscriber only
Exclusive: Taxpayers were to foot a $100,000 bill for an extravagant get together for staff at the agency in charge of the controversial My Health Record.
The event at the Sydney Cricket Ground scheduled for May was intended to bring the Australian Digital Health Agency’s (ADHA) 424 staff together for a very expensive face-to-face occupational health and safety briefing.
News Corp has confirmed that the ADHA made a tentative booking at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
However, the agency says the SCG was ruled out as the venue on February 4 and “the SCG was notified of the decision not use their venue on 5 February”.
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Challenges accessing patient records a driver of unnecessary healthcare
GPs, specialists and hospital staff cite challenges in accessing patient information from other clinicians as a common reason for requesting unnecessary medical tests, treatments or procedures, according to a new report from Choosing Wisely Australia.
In survey findings published today in the 2018 Choosing Wisely Australia Report: Conversations for change, 54% of GPs, 61% of specialists and 36% of health services reported that difficulties accessing information from doctors in other settings, including results, was a key reason for requesting unnecessary healthcare.
Health professionals also identified patient expectations, potential for medical litigation and uncertainty of diagnosis as common factors behind low-value healthcare.
NPS MedicineWise CEO Steve Morris said: “The appetite for reducing unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures is strong among Australia’s health professional bodies, in primary and specialist care and in our hospitals.
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Survey finds communication key reason for unnecessary healthcare
More than half of the GPs in a nationwide survey cited difficulties in accessing patient information as a crucial aspect of unnecessary healthcare.
The findings, published in the latest Choosing Wisely Australia Report, show that 61% of specialists and 36% of hospital staff also reported challenges in accessing information from doctors in other settings, leading to avoidable medical tests, treatments and procedures.
More than 80% of the GPs surveyed said there is a problem with the use of unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures in medical practice, which are also driven by patient expectations, potential for medical litigation and uncertainty of diagnosis.
However, while 62% of GPs and 42% of specialists cited patient expectations as a driver for ordering unnecessary tests, only 14% of consumers said they had made such requests.
Steve Morris, CEO of the report’s publisher, NPS MedicineWise, said there is a strong appetite in Australian healthcare for reducing unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures.
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More than 80% of the GPs surveyed said there is a problem with the use of unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures in medical practice, which are also driven by patient expectations, potential for medical litigation and uncertainty of diagnosis.
However, while 62% of GPs and 42% of specialists cited patient expectations as a driver for ordering unnecessary tests, only 14% of consumers said they had made such requests.
Steve Morris, CEO of the report’s publisher, NPS MedicineWise, said there is a strong appetite in Australian healthcare for reducing unnecessary tests, treatments and procedures.
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Melbourne's See-Mode has built software that sees a stroke before it strikes
Updated Feb 27, 2019 — 8.17pm, first published at 8.00pm
Sudden death from a stroke is the fate of five million people a year, but a Melbourne start-up is showing artificial intelligence can help detect and prevent a scourge estimated to subtract $5 billion a year from Australia's economy.
See-Mode Technologies, founded by Melbourne-based biomedical engineering PhDs Dr Milad Mohammadzadeh and Dr Sadaf Monajemi, has used computer vision to scan thousands of medical images from people who went on to have a stroke, and built software they hope can warn clinicians of patients that could be next.
Nearly 500,000 Australians are living with disability caused by strokes. They occur when blood flow to an area of the brain is cut off, usually through high blood pressure causing a haemorrhage, or high cholesterol levels leading to the formation of artery-blocking plaques.
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CSIRO's CUNE uses artificial intelligence to find disease genes
CUNE uses AI to provide a more reliable way to recreate gene mutations in the lab.
Researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) Australian e-Health Research Centre have developed a more powerful way to find the genes that cause disease using artificial intelligence.
The software offers a more reliable way to recreate gene mutations in the lab, touted by CSIRO as being a step closer to better diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases.
The new cloud-based software, CUNE, is the result of a collaboration between CSIRO and the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University.
The software -- detailed this week in Scientific Reports -- makes HDR-based editing 83 percent more efficient.
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Qld Health injects $30m more into hungry new ERP system
After integration, change management issues.
Integration and change management complications have forced Queensland Health to funnel another $30 million into replacing its long-out-of-support ERP system.
The new funding for the financial system renewal project (FSR) was approved by the department last December after a business case change request was issued in July 2018.
It brings the total cost of the project to $135.4 million - $109.4 million of which has so far been spent - since the department began its second attempt at replacing the system in December 2016.
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Navigating a New Era in Aged Care Access
A new network of aged care navigator centres, information hubs and specialist advisers aims to streamline aged care access, with a $7.4 million national trial being rolled out by the Australian Government.
Page last updated: 25 February 2019
25 February 2019
A new network of aged care navigator centres, information hubs and specialist advisers aims to streamline aged care access, with a $7.4 million national trial being rolled out from today by the Morrison Government.
Launched under the Aged Care System Navigator initiative, the three new trial programs will offer face-to-face assistance to senior Australians and their families in every state and territory, including selected rural and remote areas.
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Watching this video could dull your pain
By Liam Mannix
March 2, 2019 — 1.01pm
As the doctor pushed his fingers deep into her stomach and started to move her baby into position, all Elizabeth Deitz could do was focus as hard as she could on the lanterns, hanging up there in the night sky.
“When it got really bad, I was just thinking ‘get the lantern, get the lantern’. It’s something to have your mind going towards so you’re not focusing on the ouch.”
Ms Deitz is one of the first people in the world to trial virtual reality therapy to cut pain while undergoing a procedure to fix a complication of her pregnancy.
Across the country, VR is being trialled as a way of dulling pain for people undergoing operations and for those with chronic-pain issues, in addition to promising work treating PTSD and other mental health conditions.
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Medical technology: Necessity auntie of invention at Loop+
- 12:00AM March 2, 2019
What started as a passion project by two sisters determined to improve the health outcomes of young Evander Conroy is now on the verge of becoming a global digital healthcare solution for wheelchair users.
Clare Conroy was set on improving the health of her son Evander, who was born with a neuroblastoma tumour compressing his spinal cord, and spent years seeking top care in Australia and the US.
Mrs Conroy sought various rehabilitation programs but found there was no proper feedback that would be useful for her son who can’t move spontaneously from the chest down.
There was also no feedback to inform her that the rehabilitation work Evander was doing was helping to manage his health and avoid complications such as scoliosis, pressure sores and pneumonia.
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Tracking products to patients to improve patient safety
By Catherine Koetz*
Friday, 01 March, 2019
Friday, 01 March, 2019
We can trace an apple back to its grower, but can’t track medical products throughout the supply chain to patients. Traceability needs to be a focus of our healthcare system.
As patients in our health system, we expect the same level of product traceability that is becoming the norm for the consumer products and food that we buy. We can now scan an individual piece of fruit and the processes used and available data enables us to track its origin back to the grower. But are we able to track products through the supply chain all the way to patients across our healthcare system? The answer today is no. So why haven’t we introduced these concepts in the health system to improve our safety, information and experiences as Australian health consumers?
Think like a healthcare consumer
If we step outside our organisational lenses for a minute and think like the health consumers that we are, we probably assume that our health system already has the basic technology to support traceability and track all patient activities in real time.
Technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are the new tech buzzwords that have captured our attention. What you may not know is that the data interoperability and data capture that is needed to make these new technologies a success starts with technology basics such as unique identification and barcode scanning at point of care.
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Flood-affected areas to receive boost with GP telehealth services
The Federal Government has announced it will provide essential telehealth support services for rural communities impacted by the Queensland floods.
01 Mar 2019
The recent devastating floods have disrupted rural communities across Northern Queensland, with many in need of extra support.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has unveiled telehealth support services to assist rural patients in flood-affected areas of Queensland will be provided from 2 March.
The Government will introduce eight new Medicare items that will allow rural and remote patients in flood-affected areas to receive care from their regular GP via phone, email or videoconference until 30 June. The new items are the same as the current standard GP consultations, and will attract the same Medicare fees and rebates.
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Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has unveiled telehealth support services to assist rural patients in flood-affected areas of Queensland will be provided from 2 March.
The Government will introduce eight new Medicare items that will allow rural and remote patients in flood-affected areas to receive care from their regular GP via phone, email or videoconference until 30 June. The new items are the same as the current standard GP consultations, and will attract the same Medicare fees and rebates.
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GP-printed splints may be a mouse click away
TGA says it needs a regulatory plan for 3D-printed medical devices
Antony Scholefield
1st March 2019
3D printing is supposedly the future of medicine.
3D printers craft raw materials such as resin-like substances into an object by building it layer upon layer. It’s also known as additive manufacturing.
The technique is meant to make it relatively cheap to create patient-specific prostheses, hip replacements and even experimental silicon hearts.
In the US, 3D printing is controversial because people have started printing parts of guns, with no serial numbers.
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Do you see patients using complementary medicines? Then you need this app
HOT APPS: It explains the chemical effects of various herbs on the body and any evidence to support their use
Dr Rob Park
25th February 2019
Patients regularly bamboozle me. Recently, their favourite way has been to bring in a large bag of mixed herbs and bottles from the chemist, eBay or China; and sometimes all three.
I used to smile sheepishly and apologise that I can google these with them but I don’t know much about chai hu or goldenseal.
However, the last time a patient asked me about Isatis root, I was prepared.
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Patients’ fees open for all to compare
- 12:00AM March 2, 2019
Patients may finally be able to compare specialist fees and charges before treatment and know their likely out-of-pocket expenses upfront after the Coalition vowed to strike a deal with health groups for a new government website.
But the pre-election push for greater transparency may also shine a spotlight on the contribution made by Medicare and health insurers to rising medical bills and prompt calls for further reform.
Health Minister Greg Hunt will today release advice from an expert committee, headed by Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy, and commit to fund and develop its proposed website.
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Federal Government announces new website to name and shame specialist doctors who charge big out-of-pocket fees
Annabel Hennessy The West Australian Saturday, 2 March 2019 1:06PM
There has been an increase in doctors' fees across the country, with some patients paying up to $120 to visit a GP.
Doctors who slug patients with huge out-of-pocket bills for specialist treatments will be named and shamed in a new website being launched by the Federal Government.
Health Minister Greg Hunt will today announce a new website which will list fees and out-of-pocket expenses charged by individual specialist doctors.
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Iran or China? Competing claims about actor behind Parliament hack
- 22 February 2019
- Written by Sam Varghese
The Australian Parliament was hacked by a group based in Iran, a hitherto unknown security firm has claimed, adding that the Mabna Institute, which was backing the person or people involved, had also been implicated in attacks on the US and other Western countries.
The company which made the claim, Resecurity, said the attack was part of a wave which had targeted the Five Eyes intelligence alliance: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The attack was made public on 8 February and on Monday Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed a sophisticated state actor was behind the breach.
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Sec firm claims ASD agrees with Iran hack findings
- 24 February 2019
- Written by Sam Varghese
The security outfit Resecurity, that claimed the infiltration of the Australian Parliament was the work of an actor backed by Iran, says the Australian Signals Directorate has confirmed this attribution.
Resecurity researcher Jean-Jacques Gonçalves told iTWire that the company had been monitoring the Iranian group, which was backed by an organisation known as the Mabna Institute which is said to be allied with Iran's Revolutionary Guard, for some time.
Asked about Resecurity's claims, the ASD responded with a statement from the Australian Cyber Security Centre which did not address the question, but merely repeated the same message it had provided when asked to comment on the initial claims made by Resecurity a couple of days ago.
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Toyota Australia corporate IT systems still down due to hack
- 22 February 2019
- Written by Sam Varghese
Toyota Australia's corporate IT systems were still offline on Friday following what the company yesterday described as a "cyber attack", according to a notice on its website.
The notice said: "At this stage, we do not believe that customer and employee data has been compromised."
Toyota said it had set up an emergency call centre to handle customer inquiries about the recall of Takata airbags.
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Toyota Australia corporate IT systems still offline
- 01 March 2019
- Written by Sam Varghese
More than a week after it was hit by a self-admitted cyber attack, Toyota Australia's corporate IT systems are still offline, the company says on its website.
The company continues to say that it does not believe that customer and employee data has been compromised. The attack is said to have been noticed on 19 February.
The notice seen on Friday said the company's guest experience centre was back online. The attack was made public on 21 February.
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Tech giants and civil liberty groups call out ghost cops and source code demands under Australian encryption laws
Submission attempts to convince Canberra that forcing companies to hand over source code or silently add cops into chats are bad ideas.
A collective of companies and civil liberty groups including Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Privacy International, Linux Australia, and the Electronics Frontier Foundation have issued a warning that requirements to silently add law enforcement into encryption chats could introduce vulnerabilities and create new risks to systems.
The plan to create so-called "ghost users", detailed as a discussion starter by Technical Director of the National Cyber Security Centre Ian Levy and Technical Director for Cryptanalysis for GCHQ Crispin Robinson in November, was claimed to allow end-to-end encryption to remain, and have an extra end for law enforcement.
"It's relatively easy for a service provider to silently add a law enforcement participant to a group chat or call," the pair said.
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Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft back call for changes to Australia’s ‘encryption’ law
Tech industry, civil liberties advocates call for rework of surveillance legislation
A coalition of groups that brings together civil liberty and privacy advocates with major technology firms has called for a major rework of controversial Australian legislation that they argue could weaken the cyber security of popular online services.
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter and Facebook are among those calling for changes to the law.
In total, 36 groups have endorsed a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) which is examining the legislation that was rushed through parliament at the end of last year in somewhat bizarre circumstances.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/mozilla-may-treat-aussie-staff-as-insider-threats-to-code-base-519793
Mozilla may treat Aussie staff as 'insider threats' to code base
Seeds of mistrust sewn by anti-encryption laws.
Mozilla - maker of the Firefox browser - and hosted email provider FastMail are worried that individual employees will be put in untenable positions by law enforcement exercising new anti-encryption laws.
In separate submissions to a senate inquiry examining the now-passed laws, the two technology companies raised concerns about how they could trust their workers.
Both Mozilla [pdf] and FastMail [pdf] worry that individual employees could be targeted by law enforcement to make secret changes to systems.
The employee would then be under secrecy provisions that prevented them from even informing their own employer about what they had done.
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FastMail loses customers, faces calls to move over anti-encryption laws
Australia no longer 'respects right to privacy'.
Hosted email provider FastMail says it has lost customers and faces “regular” requests to shift its operations outside Australia following the passage of anti-encryption laws.
The Victorian company, which offers ad-free email services to users in 150 countries, told a senate committee that the now-passed laws were starting to bite.
“The way in which [the laws] were introduced, debated, and ultimately passed ... creates a perception that Australia has changed - that we are no longer a country which respects the right to privacy,” FastMail CEO Bron Gondwana said. [pdf]
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Five Eyes fears rise over Aussie encryption laws
By Bo Seo
Feb 25, 2019 — 11.00am
Australia is facing increased criticism from industry and advocacy groups across the group of intelligence-sharing nations known as the Five Eyes, with fears its new data encryption laws could represent a weakening of the alliance, and leave it out on a limb on citizens' security and privacy rights.
The concerns, detailed in interviews with The Australian Financial Review, come after an international coalition of 36 civil society organisations, technology companies and industry bodies filed a submission to the Australian government calling for amendments to the law on Friday.
Australia's Telecommunications Assistance and Access laws, passed in December, granting government agencies new powers to force technology companies to decrypt messages on their platforms to aid criminal and national security investigations.
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Software firm claims new law was meant to break encryption
- 28 February 2019
- Written by Sam Varghese
Custom software development firm ThoughtWorks has rejected the Federal Government's assertion that it is not interested in breaking encryption, pointing out that the encryption law passed in December has "the direct and inevitable consequence of compromising the integrity of cryptographic systems".
In a submission to the ongoing inquiry into the law - officially known as the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 - the company said that breaking a secure system for one person meant that it would become insecure for all users.
"Whilst the Assistance and Access Act may not explicitly mandate the breaking of cryptographic algorithms, it requires tech companies to compromise/break the security of their systems and their users’ data," the submission said.
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Alcidion Group releases H1 FY2019 financial results
Posted February 25, 2019
Alcidion Group Limited has today released its financial results for the first half of FY2019.
During the period Alcidion completed the acquisition of the MKM Health and Patientrack businesses and commenced integration of these newly acquired businesses. The Group now has a broader portfolio of products and services, a larger and more diversified customer base and an enhanced financial profile.
For the six months to 31 December 2018, total revenue grew nearly six-fold to $7.3 million compared to the prior comparable period (H1 FY2018: $1.3 million), a direct result of the contribution of the newly acquired business as well as new contract wins and renewals. New contract wins and renewals over the period totalled $23.4 million and included contracts with several large public health organisations such as Queensland Health, Alfred Health, NT Department of Health and ACT Health.
As at 31 December 2018, Alcidion had a total of $14.8 million in contracted revenues which are expected to be realised in the current financial year. The Group therefore anticipates reporting revenue for H2 FY2019 of at least $7.5m, prior to winning any new contracts. In addition, the Group has a further $27.4 million in contracted revenues to be realised over the next five years from FY2020.
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ACT Health to expand use of Patientrack – new contract signed
Yesterday, Alcidion Group Limited (ASX:ALC) announced it signed a new contract with ACT Health to further extend the use of Patientrack across the ACT. The total value of the new contract is $711K over 2.5 years (to October 2022).
This new contract supersedes a prior contract through which ACT Health originally acquired a perpetual licence to use Patientrack at The Canberra Hospital (TCH) and then at the new University of Canberra Hospital (UCH) for an initial 2.5-year term.
The new contract covers the ongoing licensing, support and maintenance of the Patientrack software at TCH and UCH through to October 2022, as well as extending licensing and support arrangements to cover the Calvary Public Hospital, Bruce for an initial three-year term.
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This new contract supersedes a prior contract through which ACT Health originally acquired a perpetual licence to use Patientrack at The Canberra Hospital (TCH) and then at the new University of Canberra Hospital (UCH) for an initial 2.5-year term.
The new contract covers the ongoing licensing, support and maintenance of the Patientrack software at TCH and UCH through to October 2022, as well as extending licensing and support arrangements to cover the Calvary Public Hospital, Bruce for an initial three-year term.
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Welcome to the 5G age
- 12:00AM February 28, 2019
The fifth generation of cellular mobile communications is with us. 5G phones exist and 5G networks are firing up.
The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week has been brimming with new gadgets and services related to 5G, and several records were broken.
Inseego claimed the world’s longest 5G data call, about seven hours. It’s a start.
The US, China, South Korea and Japan are the trailblazers as 5G networks roll out around the world. You can expect 5G handsets in Australia by midyear.
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NBN available to 75% of premises: Fifield
- 25 February 2019
- Written by Stephen Withers
NBN services are available to three-quarters of Australian premises, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield says.
As previously reported, NBN Co's half-yearly report for the period ending December 2018 showed 9.5 million premises were ready for service, more than three-quarters of the 11.6 million expected by June 2020.
Noting that NBN Co had reached this milestone, Fifield said NBN Co was on track to connect every Australian home and business to affordable, high-speed broadband by 2020.
“The NBN rollout is now reaching every corner of our country, transforming Australia’s communications landscape,” said Fifield, perhaps with an eye towards the coming Federal election.
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Massive NBN Co push to flip a million unserviceable premises
By the end of June.
NBN Co is planning a massive cull of premises that are currently listed as unable to carry retail services between now and June, equivalent to almost one million homes and businesses.
If achieved, it would mean over 70 percent of the premises that are sometimes known as “service class zero or equivalent” will be made serviceable in just the next four months.
The number came to light after an apparent error in a status update on how NBN Co was tracking against its ready to connect target in the corporate plan of 9.7 million premises.
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Enjoy!
David.
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