Up until mid-October last year the Digital Health scene and all the goings on with the myHealthRecord and the various State systems, as well as activity in the private sector was being covered by both Pulse + IT and www.healthcareit.com.au (which was an outpost for the US based HIMSS, which was founded about a year before that.)
These two sites provided detailed coverage and were augmented by the national mastheads and the various technical news sites and various medical news sites.
In mid-October the editor of the site changed – for unexplained reasons. The new editor was producing less in-depth material and was really not breaking much new news. This is often seen in a totally cash strapped industry and I suspect readership of the site dropped!
About a week ago posting by this editor ceased and we now have Berlin (Germany) based correspondent producing material on Australia somehow – as well as having some material from the Singapore HIMSS site contributing articles from Australia to the global site (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/).
Gentle enquiries around the traps seem to suggest that the control of the site has now moved back to the U.S. and that the arrangements with the Australian content manager (Mahlab) have been terminated, presumably by HIMSS.
Bottom line is that it seems we have lost one of the two dedicated Australian based Digital Health news sources. It would be just hopeless if a lot of our Digital Health news was sourced internationally and without much insight. Even with the best will in the world this is second best. Local is much better I believe.
Given the need to hold the ADHA and the Department of Health to account for what they are doing this seems like a very bad outcome for all of us to me.
What do you think?
David.
15 comments:
I'm surprised there's been so little discussion of MyHR during the election campaign, given the furore over the opt-everyone-in that took place.
No-one keen to tell us how that's working out?
The agency seems to be keeping its head down - apart from regular titbits/propaganda - but there really seems to a failure of mainstream media to question the major parties/candidates on what they're planning to do with our health data.
Or is it still such a hot issue that neither side is willing to mention it? Don't startle the horses...
I agree, David! Surely a "healthcare and technology freelancer based in Berlin" has little knowledge of the local digital health space. There seems to be some arrogance on the part of HIMSS to think that we can be reported on from afar. The Europe-generated coverage has so far reported on vaguely interesting or weeks late stuff at a time when local stories are happening and a federal election campaign is going on. He even missed a rather large HIMSS-related story: https://www.pulseitmagazine.com.au/australian-ehealth/4913-act-health-looks-to-boost-emram-score-through-digital-health-strategy
Yes, with both parties using our electoral data, Clive Palmer bombarding me with texts, the Russia/Trump thing and of course Facebook's global grip, I'm surprised that data privacy has not been raised as a key election issue.
In the US, people are organising... https://www.fightforprivacy.co/
Hi David,
I post every fortnight now for Wild Health on digital health with a free to join newsletter. Im working on going weekly but you are right about the market not being easy from a revenue perspective for such ventures. PULSE IT, which is a great daily update, was built a long time ago and started as a magazine and then migrated to an online newsletter. A lot of it is a paid subscriber base, which is possibly the only way to survive as a newsletter in this day and age, bar, running events, which we do. Wild Health. I won't promote that here but if anyone wants to subscribe for free out the Wild Health Irregular Insights Newsletter, you can at www.wildhealth.net.au. For disclosure purposes the Wild Health event has taken sponsorship from the ADHA in the past, but very little. And I don't think you could accuse us of going easy on them!
BTW I don' think HIMMS is being arrogant here. I suspect they have withdrawn for a bit because they didn't think their newsletter was good enough! They may well be back one day as Australia is a fairly important emerging market for digital health ideas, including stuff like FHIR, and yes, the My Health Record.
Hope you are well
Jeremy Knibbs
jeremy@medicalrepublic.com.au
Honest Government Ad | 2019 Election (Season Finale)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJrXI3rBbSA
Even My Health Record gets a mention. (3' 37")
Rather puts it in the context of all that other shitfuckery
@1:16 PM. Excellent post they always raise a chuckle. Jeremy @12:09, appreciate your writings and insights. Always seem balanced and thought provoking.
David I think you are too modest in excluding this site and the work done to bring together local national and international prodding’s.
Mainstream news is a bit of a mess at the moment while new business models are discovered, sadly good journalism seems to be taking a hit while we go through this current phase of ‘2 clicks and seven seconds’.
What I have found underwhelming is the way ADOHA has fallen short in utilising all available media and communications platforms. They get very little followers, reposts. Retweets are negligible and the images of meetings during ‘community visits’ are questionable in regards to impact and value for money. This all points towards the messages and marketing are not getting beyond the few that already know what it is all about and is certainly not indicating the millions who opted out are being won back.
Hopefully work can focus back on the important bits and that is information.
3:59 PM
"This all points towards the messages and marketing are not getting beyond the few that already know what it is all about and is certainly not indicating the millions who opted out are being won back."
That's probably the intent.
From a tweet May 12, which might help explain why no one is mentioning the Scottish play
Had a dispriting time chatting to local candidates..essentially a content free conversation. EG when asking the #alp candidate about the urgent need to rebulid #myhealthrecord into a trustable functional system:Hadnt even heard of #fhir or the dna links.
There is no reason for politicians to know about technical enabler standards like FHIR unless they are directly involved with Healthcare IT. Around the world, it's their direct advisors that know about details like that.
OTOH, a discussion about the overall design of government IT systems that interact with voters is a critical discussion to have. However my experience is that discussions with politicians in Australia are more content free than in many other countries (something that should concern us greatly)
RE data privacy as an election issue... Today's news:
Over 10 million people hit in single Australian data breach: OAIC
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner's quarterly data breach report also revealed private health was again the country's most affected sector.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/over-10-million-people-hit-in-single-australian-data-breach-oaic/
I hope Wild health's emails become popular, and have enjoyed reading some of the dispatches, but I think there are people currently writing about the heath IT field who could play more nicely in the sandpit. Catch more flies with honey, after all. It is a small sector. We not only read what you publish, but we hear how you behave and emails get forwarded around.
Not David, of course - he is the oracle :)
Wow, the off-shoring of journalism should be a concern.
I am disappointed that an Australian editor who focussed on the sector has presumably lost their job.
It saves HIMSS a lot of money - a few hundred euros per story for a Germany-based freelancer versus a salary, etc, for a full-time, Australian-based editor.
But it is preposterous to imagine that a casual based on the other side of the planet can provide the level and quality of coverage that a dedicated local editor can.
There was so much controversy when telcos outsourced their call centres to Asia. I hope there is some alarm at the fourth estate being off-shored. Especially when it is focussed on a high stakes field like digital health.
Read this - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.amp.html
And then carefully read this - https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/asia-pacific/new-zealand-s-moh-open-national-health-data-fhir
It does not help when our political people ridicule the press and make them out to be bias at best. Amazing how an infection in the White House is reflected across the many governments we have here.
Every single story on Healthcare IT News Australia these days is a plagiarised media release. Is this news or reliable coverage of the digital health space? Hardly.
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