This appeared last week.
GP patient data worth up to $50k per year in PIP revamp
The department has also revealed the rules for PHNs collecting the data
8th July 2019
Practices will receive up to $50,000 a year for handing over de-identified patient data under the long-delayed Practice Incentive Program reforms designed to drive quality improvement.
The data will include general information on gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity, but also information such as the proportion of patients with diabetes with a current HbA1c result and the proportion of patients with a smoking status (see box).
However, as yet no detailed clinical data, such as patients' actual HBA1C or blood pressure results, is being collected.
In return, GP practices will receive $5 per standardised whole patient equivalent (SWPE) per year — a measure of practices' size used for various incentives already — capped at $12,500 per quarter.
The information will be extracted from GP practice software by local primary health networks using extraction software.
The PHNs are tasked with aggregating the information.
No GP practice data will be sent to the Department of Health, although PHNs will have to provide details about which practices have met the QI PIP requirements.
The Federal Government has stressed all the patient information collected from practices will be de-identified.
It has also produced a 20-page governance framework dictating what PHNs can and cannot do with the information.
It demands that PHNs identify individuals who access the GP data they hold, along with setting up a disaster recovery plan.
The framework, which was released last Friday, states that only practices can hold any data that can identify a patient.
“No data leaves the general practice without the practice’s permission,” it adds.
……
More information: PIP QI Incentive guidance
Full article is found here:
This incentive scheme, as noted, amounts to a fairly large amount of money and so can be expected to be popular with GP’s.
Reading the detail I suspect that what is sent to the PHNs from the practice is the aggregate outcome from that practice of the following data elements / measures:
“The Improvement Measures are:
1. Proportion of patients with diabetes with a current HbA1c result
2. Proportion of patients with a smoking status
3. Proportion of patients with a weight classification
4. Proportion of patients aged 65 and over who were immunised against influenza
5. Proportion of patients with diabetes who were immunised against influenza
6. Proportion of patients with COPD who were immunised against influenza
7. Proportion of patients with an alcohol consumption status
8. Proportion of patients with the necessary risk factors assessed to enable CVD assessment
9. Proportion of female patients with an up-to-date cervical screening
10. Proportion of patients with diabetes with a blood pressure result”
If this is correct then there is little risk of problem. If however the PHN is given the detailed data on how the aggregate was arrived at, then risks to privacy increase – especially as the PHNs are unlikely to be experts at privacy protection.
A diagram that shows the data-flows and extraction steps and locations clearly would be a great addition to the present documentation and would make sure everyone knows what data is going where.
A notice on the practice wall explaining what is happening would seem to be fairly good practice as well!
Given recent concerns with privacy and the myHealthRecord I suspect the Department is being very careful to have the program pretty bullet proof!
David.
2 comments:
The object of the exercise is doctors, dressed up as helping them improve their performance. I doubt that meany trust the government very much.
This has all the making on a complete disaster. Oh we have a governance document, that’s is the same bollocks as ‘the risk is in the risk spreadsheet so the risk is being managed.
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