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
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E-Health records and access to them were included in a range of stories this week. Also we have lots of reporting of various scientific studies and again we see the NBN (National Basket-case Network) being recognised as a gigantic technical snafu! Pity about that for all of us!
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Why patients can’t use their My health record
Sue Dunlevy, National Health Reporter, News Corp Australia Network
July 7, 2019 6:00pm
Subscriber only
Exclusive: It’s cost taxpayers nearly $2 billion but most Australians can’t access their online electronic health record and most have not set a PIN number to protect information on it.
Nine in 10 Australians had a My Health Record created for them on January 31 after they failed to opt out of the controversial system.
However, News Corp has learned four in ten people have no way of using it or checking whether the information on it is accurate or setting privacy controls.
To access the record you need to have a MyGov account but even though 23 million Australians have a My Health Record, only 15 million people have a MyGov account.
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'Unsustainable', 'unreliable': damning report for new Sydney hospital
By Kate Aubusson
Updated July 9, 2019 — 1.03pmfirst published at 1.00pm
Senior and junior staff continue to raise serious concerns for patient care and their own wellbeing at Northern Beaches Hospital, in the wake of a damning report that unearthed a series of fundamental failures weeks after the first patients were admitted.
The report - made public seven months after investigators inspected the $600 million hospital - found delays in delivering abnormal test results, chronic staffing shortages and unreliable electronic medical records and paging systems.
It's the most comprehensive rebuke of the repeated assurances that the problems plaguing the hospital were "teething problems", and vindicates efforts to obtain the report under freedom of information laws that were repeatedly blocked by Healthscope claiming it would breach commercial-in-confidence.
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Defence searches for next ADF e-health platform
Issues tender to IT services panel.
The Department of Defence has quietly opened tendering for its long-awaited new e-health records platform to service the ADF’s 80,000 deployed and non-deployed personnel.
The department issued a restricted request for quotation for the system, known as the health knowledge management (HKM) solution, through its IT services panel early last month.
The platform, which represents the final component of Defence’s billion-dollar JP2060 deployable health capability project, will replace the existing ADF-wide Defence eHealth System (DeHS).
DeHS currently provides each ADF member a single e-health record and supports the ADF’s business and clinical processes, though infamously blew out by more than double its $56 million budget
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Rosemary wants to be the 'Uber' of electronic scripts
Jul 8, 2019 — 12.00am
The former managing director of Dropbox Australia, a Microsoft Health executive and an early Atlassian employee are among the seed investors in Rosemary, a start-up that has created an app to help the millions of Australians struggling to manage their medications.
Better management of medicines can improve their efficacy and reduce waste. The app could also help the 5660-plus community-based pharmacies around Australia to compete better with giant chains such as Chemist Warehouse, not to mention US-giant Amazon which entered the US pharmacy market in 2018, and has grand ambitions in the sector.
Rosemary has raised nearly $1 million from investors including Microsoft director of Health and Social Services, Asia, Gabe Rijpma, ex-Dropbox Australia MD and entrepreneur Charlie Wood, and California-based Justen Stepka (who sold his software security business to Atlassian in 2006).
Other investors include those working in private equity and several discreetly wealthy Australians.
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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.
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Australian IT spending hits $93.8 billion
IT services forms bulk of expenditure at $34.3 billion
Depending on technology products and services in Australia is expected to reach almost $93.8 billion in 2019.
The figures from Gartner mark a 3.1 per cent increase from last year, with spending expected to crack $102 billion by 2021.
The analyst firm has broken this up into five areas: IT services lead the charge at $34.3 billion; communication services will hit $26.8 billion; software $16.8 billion; devices $12.6 billion and data centre systems $3 billion in 2019.
Australia's growth is outpacing the global rate, which is expected to increase by 0.6 per cent to US$3.74 trillion. This in itself represents a slight decrease from the previous quarter forecast of 1.1 per cent growth, the analyst firm said.
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Adelaide IT services provider Chamonix lands $8 million govt healthcare software deal
Adelaide-based IT services provider Chamonix IT Management Consulting has scored an $8 million contract with the Australian Digital Health Agency.
The contract is to develop and support of a Health Identifier and Personally Controlled EHealth Record (PCEHR) System, or HIPS.
HIPS, owned by ADHA, is a My Health Record integration software solution used by hospitals and private diagnostic providers to connect to the national My Health Record infrastructure.
An ADHA spokesperson told CRN that Chamonix was picked out from an open tender process.
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Developers to design software for specialists
Monday, 08 July, 2019
Nine Australian software organisations have received $40,000 funding from the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) to develop systems that integrate My Health Record (MHR) with medical specialists’ existing clinical information platforms.
While many specialists, such as cardiologists and anaesthetists, already use MHR through private and public hospital systems, the ADHA hopes the move will help drive MHR adoption in private practices.
This would give specialists a complete view of the patient during private consultations — enabling them to make more informed decisions around patient care, according to Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ President, Associate Professor Mark Lane.
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Alan's exoskeleton 'suit of armour'
By Liam Mannix
July 7, 2019 — 4.47pm
You hear it before you see it. Whirr-CRUNCH-whirr-CRUNCH-whirr-CRUNCH.
It rounds the corner, starting to hit top speed, straps flying, servos whirring, metal slamming into the bitumen. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
Here it is before you. A gleaming steel exoskeleton, two metres tall, supported by a spine made of metal vertebrae. It looks like some sort of future weapon of war.
But this story is not about the suit.
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Monday, 08 July 2019 10:53
Flinders team develops tiny blood flow monitor for risky surgery
A team of scientists at Flinders University is working on developing a small fibre-optic sensor, known as a continuous cardiac flow monitoring probe, that is claimed to have the potential to save lives during open-heart surgery, and even be used during surgery on premature babies.
A statement from the university said the new device could be better at the task of monitoring the flow of blood through the aorta, the main artery, during intensive care and surgical procedures which often took a long time and were quite risky.
“The minimally invasive device is suitable for neonates right through to adults,” said research leader, Strategic Professor John Arkwright, an expert in using fibre-optic technologies in medical diagnostics.
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Tuesday, 09 July 2019 11:19
Australians still hesitant about adopting smart home technology: report
Australians’ attitudes towards smart home technology means it will be some time yet before it is fully adopted, with the younger generation of Australians – those aged between 18 and 34 - concerned about the impact of technology in their homes, according to a new research report.
And according to the research by Accenture, more than half (58%) of the younger generation reported they are dependent on technology, with 55% stating they are addicted to technology – and 53% of the opinion that technology is intrusive in terms of having access to personal data.
The report - “Putting the Human First in the Future Home” - looks at consumer behaviours and routines and how the influence of emerging technology impacts their identity and motivations—and the tensions that arise.
Accenture says that, significantly, the research reveals the habits and hesitations of Australians toward buying smart home technology.
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'Medical selfies' a useful management aid
Patient-generated data should be included in MHR, says researcher
9th July 2019
Medical selfies can be a win-win for patient and treating doctor, Australian researchers say.
After a study in which patients took pictures of their rashes, wounds or surgical sites, researchers from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) said it was empowering and improved the doctor-patient relationship.
From the doctor’s point of view, it could be useful in management and reduce unnecessary consultations.
The two-part study involved interviews with 30 doctors, patients and carers across general practice, emergency and surgical care, plus a pilot trial, where 26 parents of children who had undergone laparoscopic appendicectomy emailed photos to their surgeons every two days to check healing.
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09 Jul 2019 5:45 PM AEST
Aussie Sleep Start-up Goes Global
Media Release
Australian start-up goes global to address sleep disorders.
Zurich, Switzerland and Sydney, Australia – dacadoo, a global leader in digital health engagement and Sleepfit, an Australian digital health company focusing on sleep and fatigue, have partnered to integrate sleep goals designed by Sleepfit on global healthcare platform, dacadoo.
According to recent studies about 45% of the global population suffers from sleep problems that affect their health and wellbeing. Based on research from Deloitte, almost 40% of Australians experience some form of inadequate sleep that may contribute to serious health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity, stroke, anxiety or depression. Besides the health implications, the economic costs of insufficient sleep are enormous. Deloitte Access Economics estimates that the impact of insufficient sleep on Australia’s workforce and its performance costs the country’s employers more than US$12.3 billion annually. The situation will be similar in other advanced markets worldwide.
Sleepfit fuses technology with evidence based medical expertise to improve the health and wellbeing of its users. Sleepfit screens, educates and triages people with sleep issues and disorders into personalised pathways to improve their sleep. This may include help with poor sleep habits driven by lifestyle and behavior choices, or it may identify and assist individuals with a sleep disorder such as insomnia, obstructive sleep apnoea, or restless legs syndrome.
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Experts warn Australia heading for shortfall of melanoma specialists
By Stuart Layt
July 9, 2019 — 9.11pm
Skin cancer experts warn that Australia is heading for a shortfall in dermatologists, a dangerous situation for the country with the highest rate of melanoma.
The Australasian College of Dermatologists is calling for more to be done to curb rates of melanoma, from funding, to scientific breakthroughs, to training more skin specialists.
The Australasian College of Dermatologists warns there is a shortage of skin cancer specialists in the country with the highest rate of melanoma in the world.
College president David Francis said there was an estimated 14 per cent deficiency in the projected demand for dermatology services.
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Digital health accelerator program aims to speed innovation in WA
Nathan Eddy | 10 Jul 2019
A broad consortium of organizations, including the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University, have partnered to help develop the WA's first digital health-specific program.
The program will launch in Western Australia after being awarded an X-TEND WA grant from the state government. The pilot of the Digital Health Accelerator will leverage existing programs and locally based expertise, as well as deliver programs currently operating outside WA.
The partnership, which aims to support education programs in digital health commercialization, also includes the Linear Clinical Research, Perron Institute, Lions Eye Institute, Ear Science Institute Australia and Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research.
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Human rights commissioner pushes for wind-back of metadata laws
By Bevan Shields
July 11, 2019 — 11.30am
Australia's human rights commissioner is pushing the Morrison government to slash police access to the private records of phone and internet users, warning the nation's controversial metadata regime has amassed too much power and threatens press freedom.
The ABC has also stepped up pressure on the Coalition, writing to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton demanding an immediate end to police action against two senior reporters following a raid on the ABC's Sydney headquarters last month.
Australian Federal Police officers raided the ABC’s Sydney office and a News Corp journalist's house.
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Data retention compliance costs snowball past $200m
- 12:00AM July 10, 2019
The cost of complying with Australia’s mandatory data retention system, which has been used by police to access journalist’s communication records, has snowballed to more than $200 million, according to the national regulator for telecommunications.
Data retention complication cost, exclusive of data retention industry grants, was $211.5m over four years, the Australian Communications and Media Authority said in its submission to a parliamentary committee that is reviewing the four-year old data retention compliance regime.
Of that, $39.1m was recovered from criminal law-enforcement agencies over the four years.
Telecom companies — including Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom — are required to keep telecommunications data for two years under the mandatory data retention regime.
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Encryption law making life harder for journalists: claim
The passage of the Australian encryption law has made it harder for journalists to communicate with their sources without jeopardising their confidentiality, American cryptography fellow Dr Riana Pfefferkorn has claimed in a submission to an inquiry into the law.
Dr Pfefferkorn, who works with the Stanford Centre for Internet and Society, but made her submission in an individual capacity, said the Australian Federal Police had used some of the provisions in the law during recent raids on the ABC and News Limited journalist Annika Smethurst.
"Thanks to new powers granted by Schedule 3 of the Act, the warrant to [the] ABC allowed the AFP to 'add, copy, delete or alter' material on the ABC’s computers," she wrote. "That is, the police had authorisation to change, tamper with, even destroy other ABC computer files, so long as they could say it was necessary to get access to the data they were seeking."
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Amazon blasts Australia's "technically flawed" anti-encryption laws
Protections don't go far enough.
Amazon has criticised Australia’s anti-encryption laws for forcing technology companies to weaken their security, suggesting that protections against systemic weaknesses or vulnerabilities are “technically flawed”.
The e-commerce and cloud computing giant has also warned a lack of balance between the needs of law enforcement and national security agencies and consumers could “reduce consumer trust in technology”.
In its submission [pdf] to the latest review of the Assistance and Access Act (AA Act), Amazon broadsides so-called protections afforded in the law to prohibit the creation of systemic weaknesses or vulnerabilities.
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Tuesday, 09 July 2019 11:07
Encryption law: lots of jaw, but the end product will be a dog
Submissions. Reviews. More submissions. More reviews. When it comes to the Coalition Government's encryption law, there has been no shortage of material published, from both the companies that are affected and the government.
But it all appears to be a waste of time, if the submission made by the Department of Home Affairs to the latest inquiry is any indication.
The level of spin in that submission is better than anything Shane Warne could produce in his prime. All the opposition to the law is put down to "misunderstanding" of the legislation.
And the department is all set to provide material to rectify that gap in understanding. Chapter closed, nothing to see here, move on.
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This is one time you'll actually want your device listening in
Lydia is a reporter with Australian Doctor Group.
10th July 2019
Worried the machines around you are always listening?
You might take comfort from knowing that some are listening for signs you require an ambulance, rather than to influence your shopping habits.
University of Washington researchers have developed a tool that’s apparently 97% successful at detecting agonal breathing — the ‘gasps for air’ made by around 50% of people having a cardiac arrest — from up to 6m away.
The aim is to develop an app for Alexa, the digital personal assistant, so it can call emergency services if it hears agonal breathing, and sound an alarm for anyone nearby to perform CPR.
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12 Jul 2019 9:35 AM AEST
Australian dementia innovation on showcase in Los Angeles
Innovative Dementia Australia technology solutions helping to improve the lives of people living with dementia will be showcased at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Los Angeles next week.
Dementia Australia CEO Maree McCabe said the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) is the world’s largest forum for the dementia research community and will provide Dementia Australia with the opportunity to demonstrate two of its technology-driven initiatives.
“AAIC is the largest and most influential international meeting dedicated to dementia science,” Ms McCabe said.
“I am thrilled Dementia Australia’s efforts to improve the lives of people living with dementia will be on display at such a prestigious international conference.”
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How Netflix and the streaming revolution killed the NBN's dream of super fast broadband on fixed wireless
8 July, 2019
About 10 years ago, when the original plan for a mostly fibre NBN was first famously sketched on the back of a serviette by Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy, streaming TV was not a thing.
Key points:
- Two years ago the NBN promised download speeds on fixed wireless would soon match the best available on the network: 100 megabits per second
- Now the NBN says download speeds of just 6mbps are acceptable for some fixed wireless customers, some of the time
- The Government's Statement of Expectations for the NBN expects the network "to provide peak wholesale download data rates ... of at least 25mbps"
Even then delivering super fast broadband to some via fixed wireless was part of the mix.
It promised to bring the NBN to regional and rural customers who were just too hard to reach on the fixed-line network, which connects premises via fibre, copper and cable.
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Govt maintains NBN Co's $19.5bn loan "will be" refinanced
Puts a date on it - but redacts it from view.
The government maintains it has “commercial advice” that NBN Co will be able to refinance its $19.5 billion loan, though the start date for refinancing is being kept out of public view for now.
The incoming government brief (IGB) prepared by the Department of Communications for the Coalition, colloquially known as the 'blue book', shows that 18 drawdowns on the loan have been made by NBN Co to March 31 this year, totalling $10.824 billion.
NBN Co is anticipated to have drawn down up to $12.48 billion by the end of June this year. The amount is likely to be confirmed in NBN Co's upcoming full-year results.
The loan was given to NBN Co by the government in late 2016 after the network builder was unable to raise debt funding from elsewhere to complete the project.
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Fletcher rules out NBN sale to Telstra
By Jennifer Duke
July 10, 2019 — 12.05am
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher has ruled out any chance of Telstra buying the National Broadband Network and nixed hopes of a cut to wholesale prices to ease pressure on the listed telco's profits.
Telstra has been battling falling profits amid fierce competition in both the mobile and fixed line markets. As part of a broader turnaround effort, it last year created a division called InfraCo, which houses the infrastructure it leases to the NBN including pits and ducts.
NBN cannot be owned by a vertically integrated telco. That's baked into the legislation.
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NBN Co's most complained-about access tech is FTTC
Several thousand complaints a quarter.
NBN Co might claim fibre-to-the-curb users are among its biggest advocates, but users connected with that access technology also lodge more complaints than others.
New figures compiled by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) show that in the last calendar quarter of 2018, FTTC users lodged more than twice as many complaints as users connected to the NBN with other access technologies.
The ACMA said - and iTnews confirmed - that FTTC accounted for 547 complaints for every 10,000 FTTC services in operation (SIO) in the last three months of 2018.
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Mobile risk to NBN plan
NBN could come to the private markets at a time when its business model is threatened by a growth in mobile services bypassing the NBN network.
Jul 11, 2019 — 12.00am
When communications minister Paul Fletcher this week reaffirmed the legal prohibition on Telstra buying the NBN Co, he either deliberately or inadvertently drew attention to the elephant in the room.
Chanticleer wonders why Fletcher wants to keep putting the spotlight on a project that has an unsustainable pricing structure, is governed by an incomprehensible regulatory framework and is widely considered to be a barrier to Australia participating fully in the second machine age.
The second machine age is a term coined by two Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, in their 2014 book of the same name, according to tech analysts at Morgan Stanley. The term refers to the explosion of new digital technologies that will drive a step change in global productivity, at least equivalent to the Industrial Revolution.
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ACCC declares war on telco advertising
Jul 10, 2019 — 5.30pm
The competition regulator has warned internet providers to prepare for a crackdown on advertising standards after it ordered Vocus group to refund 16,000 customers of its Dodo internet brand because of false advertisements.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair Rod Sims trained his sights on ads that overstate what is possible on specific plans and or create a false urgency for customers.
Mr Sims said such misleading conduct had become rampant in the telecommunications industry and had stretched the ACCC's resources to fight it.
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Telstra facing challenges with company restructure, NBN changes and 5G rollout
By business reporter Stephanie Chalmers
Updated
Mark Peterson worked at Telstra for nearly 39 years designing and planning its network infrastructure. His role survived rolling rounds of staff cuts since the 1990s, but that changed last year.
Key points:
- Telstra says it's made "good progress" on its T22 strategy since announcing job cuts last year
- The CPSU is dissatisfied with negotiations and wants more investment in staff redeployment and voluntary redundancy processes
- Telstra will release its FY19 results in August, including restructuring costs of around $800 million
"I was going to work to a meeting — they'd called a meeting for 9 o'clock to tell us about the job cuts, but I'd heard it on the radio before I got there," he said, recalling the day last June.
Mr Peterson, from Newcastle, NSW, was one of approximately 9,500 Telstra employees whose jobs hung in the balance, with the telco announcing a net reduction of 8,000 positions, with 1,500 new roles created.
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Thursday, 11 July 2019 09:15
New comms minister Fletcher says MTM right model for NBN
The Coalition Government made the right choice back in 2013 to adopt a multi-technology mix for rolling out the national broadband network, ditching a Labor plan to have fibre to 93% of homes and service the rest through fixed wireless and satellite, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher says.
Fletcher told ABC Radio Sydney on Wednesday afternoon that the priorities in building a broadband network were to get it built as soon as possible, have the highest available speeds and to do it as cost-effectively as possible.
Responding to a query as to whether he thought the country had the broadband it needed now and for the future, Fletcher told interviewer James Valentine: "So the strategy that we've adopted with a multi-technology mix has been, in my judgment, the right way to do that.
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Govt now says 'premature' to cut Telstra from future NBN sale
Leaves door open for telco’s InfraCo unit.
Telstra may still have a chance at buying part or all of the National Broadband Network in an eventual sale after the new Communications Minister appeared to back away from earlier comments that the telco would be excluded.
The Age reported on Wednesday that Communications Minister Paul Fletcher had “ruled out any chance of Telstra buying the NBN” in a future sale process.
Telstra has previously indicated that its now-separate infrastructure business called InfraCo could make a future commercial play for the NBN, should the government proceed to privatise the asset.
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Enjoy!
David.
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