When you go to their website and read about the ADHA at its ‘about us’ you get the following.
About the Agency
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 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.
Established as a statutory authority in the form of a corporate Commonwealth entity, the Agency reports to State and Territory Health Ministers through the COAG Health Council.
Background
In November 2013, the Australian Government commissioned a review of the Personally Controlled eHealth Record (PCEHR) to assess the status of the PCEHR implementation and to work with health professionals and industry to prioritise further implementation. The Review, released on 19 May 2014, can be found at http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2014-dutton038.htm.
The 2015-16 Federal Budget announcement My Health Record - A New Direction for Electronic Health Records in Australia provided funding to strengthen eHealth governance arrangements consistent with the Review. This included the transition of relevant activities and resources from the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), and also from the national My Health Record system operation activities managed by the Department of Health, to a new entity called the Australian Digital Health Agency.
Here is the link:
I have to say it is hard to know what of any real value has come from these goals.
The ADHA organization was a revamped version of the National E-Health Transition Authority which had done a fabulous job of suppressing innovation in the Digital Health space and was killed off after a great decade of controversy and frustration .
The ADHA organization was a revamped version of the National E-Health Transition Authority which had done a fabulous job of suppressing innovation in the Digital Health space and was killed off after a great decade of controversy and frustration .
From the end of CEO’s Report in the first NEHTA Annual Report of 2005-06 we read from the then CEO.
“The last year also saw the release of the first version of NEHTA’s Interoperability Framework. In many ways, this document encapsulates the intent behind NEHTA’s creation: to guide health IT businesses and experts in delivering interoperable e-health systems in Australia, while allowing for businesses, policies and technologies to emerge and evolve. To reflect this, the Interoperability Framework will itself evolve over the next twelve months while continuing to underpin all of NEHTA’s work.NEHTA’s other achievements over the last year - each of them significant steps towards improving the electronic communication of health information - are detailed later in this report.
NEHTA has also significantly increased its efforts in communicating with its many stakeholders. Contributing to and convening industry conferences, establishing stakeholder engagement forums, publishing our work for comment and directly engaging with NEHTA’s international counterparts and key clinician and healthcare consumer organisations, health IT software vendors, standards communities and government health departments. These activities have all played an important role in creating an increasingly receptive climate for NEHTA’s work outputs.
We look forward to building on our success over the next twelve months. The coming year promises to be even busier as we, along with our stakeholders, work towards delivering essential standards, requirements and infrastructure for interoperable e-health systems, and identifying the benefits which flow as a result."
Dr Ian Reinecke
CEO, NEHTA
Seems not much has changed over a long period of time and with the coming of the ADHA!
Much to my amazement I also found the original 2005-06 document difficult to find on-line.
A search for the title of the .pdf “ NATIONAL E-HEALTH TRANSITION AUTHORITY ANNUAL REPORT 2005 – 06” does not find it on the first few pages and this find:
Trove notes really astonishingly – that the document exists but:
I am glad I kept my copy as it is now secret and you can see why!
Just what in those five paragraphs has come to fruition some 14 years later – not much I reckon.
We have a #myHealthRecord which is being spun as a success but we know if it was really being useful we would be deluged with amazing statistics and evidence on how well it is all going. I have seen none to date. It is also suppressing any other innovation.
We are still consulting on interoperability with a bemused public who could not care less or even really understand what they are being asked.
We still don’t have a working set of Standards processes to move forward on – having defunded all access to the older Standards. The old Standards remain in force and unloved by many.
Secure Clinical Messaging is still a work in progress with no certainty as to when it will all be over and working properly and fully nationally. The Fax is still widely used and will be for years to come.
The is utterly scant evidence of any Federal impact on patient safety from Digital Health and the safety Audits of the #myHR are a joke!
As for impact on the Federal Health Budget – anyone seen anything saying we are getting a net benefit from having the #myHR or the ADHA. It is all cost as far as I can tell.
Even worse, companies that try to engage with the ADHA have been messed around and under-paid!
My view is that, after 13 years, Commonwealth led Digital Health this is a failed experiment and needs to stop real soon now! It might be that the politicians agree given how quiet it has been on the #myHR front.
What do you think?
David.
3 comments:
At least for a time with NEHTA there was an ability to have a robust discussion on complex issues. NEHTA has a difficult task of providing a level playing field in a sector that had wide variance is product maturity. The ADHA has sought to dominate the conversation and market place. I do not recall any of this being proposed.
Seems all the dreamers and deep thinkers have dispersed and we are left with a bunch of ‘not quite’
It is becoming apparent that beyound the thinking that was laid out back in the original strategy that spawned NEHTA the ADHA has contributed nothing. Where are the news ways of looking at the various challenges?
The ADHA is nothing more than a federal agency so it would be useful if everyone included the ADHA started to openly acknowledge this fact and that they are unable and unwilling to do anything that different.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Upton Sinclair (1878 – 1968)
Post a Comment