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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A rather quiet week with a fair bit of corporate news and some more exaggerated claims from the ADHA on just how beneficial the #myHealthRecord is. If this were true I am sure we would have a pile of press releases outlining the huge usage and value of the system. Since that has not happened can we assume it is a bit of a flop?
Let me know your thoughts.
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Therapeutic Goods Admin issues security guidance for medical devices
'Please do security right and see your doctor if pain persists' is the gist of it.
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has published new guidelines for the security of medical devices and in vitro diagnostic (IVD) medical equipment.
Revealed on 18 July here, the new guidance comes in one version for Guidance for consumers, health professionals, small business operators and large scale service providers (pdf) and another for industry (pdf).
Neither go too far beyond generic advice, in part because legislation and regulations already offer more detailed advice.
The guidance for industry even points out that the “Essential Principles” it outlines “are not a prescriptive list of requirements for manufacturers to comply with and instead provide high level principles for flexibility according to the characteristics of the device.”
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Will new prescription app help community pharmacies?
Guild denies claim that it has endorsed the Uber Eats-inspired system
15th July 2019
An Uber Eats-inspired app for prescription medicines is being trialled ahead of the rollout of the national electronic script system.
The marketers claim it will help pharmacies compete with discounters, according to an article in the Australian Financial Review.
However, the Pharmacy Guild has been quick to deny claims in the article that it has endorsed the app.
The app, which has the brand name Rosemary, is connected to the Prescription Exchange Service and allows patients to scan their scripts to check the price, pay and then wait for their medicines to be delivered that day.
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15 July 2019
A usual GP means better information sharing
It benefits a patient to have a usual GP, not just a usual place of care, when it comes to information sharing between health services, the AIHW has found.
The “Coordination of health care: experiences of information sharing between providers for patients aged 45 and over” report is based on the 2016 Survey of Health Care, whose 35,000 respondents were Australians over 45 who had seen a GP in the 12 months to November 2015.
The previous report in the AIHW’s series on coordination of healthcare found that nearly all patients surveyed (98%) had a usual GP or a usual place of care.
But those with a usual place of care only were far more likely (27%) than those with a usual GP (9%) to report that information was not shared by a specialist, by an emergency department (43% v 22%) and after their last admission to hospital (31% v 13%), according to the new report.
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College president says 3D imaging may combat rural dermatologist shortage
Fifteen whole-body scanners are to be trialled across three states, says Adjunct Associate Professor David Francis
17th July 2019
Three-dimensional imaging is a possible solution for early detection of skin cancer in rural and remote areas in the face of a workforce shortage, says the president of the Australasian College of Dermatologists.
Although Australia faces rising rates of invasive melanoma — and already has the world’s highest age-standardised incidence rate — there is a shortage of specialists, college president Adjunct Associate Professor David Francis says.
According to Commonwealth health department estimates, the country will be short of about 90 specialist dermatologists by 2030, representing a 14% deficit in the projected demand for services.
Professor Francis says the shortfall could be even worse given the growing and ageing population and concerns about a better work-life balance for junior doctors.
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15 July 2019
WHO turns its gaze to digital health apps
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the first-ever WHO Chief Scientist, is turning her attention to digital health apps and the ethical challenges posed by artificial intelligence.
Speaking at the World Conference of Science Journalists in Lausanne, Switzerland this month, Dr Swaminathan outlined her priorities as the head of the WHO’s newly created Science Division, which oversees the Department of Digital Health.
“It would be impossible for us to regulate all apps,” Dr Swaminathan said.
“There are already thousands of health apps. But what we can do is provide the standards, which then countries can use to regulate which apps and which technologies actually have evidence behind them.”
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Pathology results now available for uploading to the My Health Record
16/07/2019
Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology (SNP) are now uploading pathology results to the My Health Record system throughout Queensland and Northern NSW. SNP can upload pathology results for episodes that are referred by means of an electronic order (eOrder) that includes the patient’s Individual Health Identifier (IHI) and the flag to indicate the patient has given consent to send the pathology results to the My Health Record. There are two software vendor systems currently enabled.
These are: Best Practice – Lava SP3 and later and Medical Director – 3.17.2 and later. For more information contact SNP: 1300 767284 or to see the information flyer, click here.
Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology (SNP) are now uploading pathology results to the My Health Record system throughout Queensland and Northern NSW. SNP can upload pathology results for episodes that are referred by means of an electronic order (eOrder) that includes the patient’s Individual Health Identifier (IHI) and the flag to indicate the patient has given consent to send the pathology results to the My Health Record. There are two software vendor systems currently enabled.
These are: Best Practice – Lava SP3 and later and Medical Director – 3.17.2 and later. For more information contact SNP: 1300 767284 or to see the information flyer, click here.
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Doctors cast doubt on joining fees website
Fees are 'meaningless' unless out-of-pocket costs are shown too, says Dr Gino Pecoraro
18th July 2019
Two high-profile obstetricians have cast doubt on whether doctors will sign up to the Federal Government’s planned transparency fee website, labelling it "meaningless" and "unhelpful".
Dr Stephen Lane, president of the National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, says his members are “unlikely” to support the website in its proposed form.
“I don't expect it to achieve the goals it sets out to," Dr Lane told Fairfax Media.
"I don't think any doctors will put their information on the website ... I wouldn't voluntarily participate unless I was confident about the accuracy of the information."
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No happy returns after myGov outage
By Simon Sharwood on Jul 12, 2019 12:19PM
Error messages suggest Web server strife. Human Services says it's mostly fixed.
Key federal government online services have gone down, hard.
iTnews understands that the outage commenced at around 11:30 AM on Friday.
Our own attempts to access myGov produced the result depicted below.
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Human Services investigates cause of outage, rules out cyber attack
Department apologises for outage
The Department of Human Services has apologised for a major outage that took the government’s myGov service online during a period of peak demand as people attempt to file tax returns.
The department said the issues began at 9.40am this morning. Services began to come back online from 12.30pm.
“We apologise for the inconvenience this outage undoubtedly caused for our customers. We understand the timing is unfortunate,” department general manager, Hank Jongen, said in a statement.
“We want to make sure customers are not disadvantaged by these issues, so we have extended the deadline for people to report their income until 7.30pm EST.”
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Alcidion to roll-out electronic medical prescription system for Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust
July 16, 2019
Health software company Alcidion Group (ASX: ALC) has secured yet another contract in the UK after Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust elected it preferred technology provider to deploy an electronic prescription medications administration system.
After a competitive tender process, Alcidion was selected to deploy Better by Marand’s OPENeP electronic medical management system for the trust.
“We are delighted to extend our existing relationship with Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust,” Alcidion managing director Kate Quirke said.
“This selection of Alcidion demonstrates the breadth of our capabilities and our value as the Trust’s strategic partner to support its goal of being paperless at the point of care by 2020.”
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Tuesday, 16 July 2019 11:24
Civica expands health & care solutions portfolio
Global software applications, digital solutions and managed services vendor Civica has expanded its health and care solutions for the Australia, New Zealand and the Asia Pacific markets by combining its private health insurance fund solutions and new cloud-based products.
Civica’s expansion of its product portfolio follows its late 2018 acquisition of Geelong-based cloud software company Carelink, now Civica Care, which the company says has since increased its “extensive market presence in Australia”.
And Civica says its new Health & Care software portfolio helps improve client and commercial outcomes for practitioners - and helping to reduce the amount of time organisations need to spend on back-end processes.
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19 July 2019
BP Jade upgrades clinical and management functions
Medical practice software specialists Best Practice has released an updated version of its general practice software with new clinical and management features designed to meet the challenges of changing primary care environment.
Called Bp Premier Jade, the software includes updated BMI calculators and enhancements for asthma care and managing My Health Records.
The status of a patient’s MHR can now be checked regularly, and if a patient has opted out of the system the record will be deactivated.
Clinicians also have access to BMI calculators with percentile charts for children aged two years and over and for adolescents.
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Monday, 15 July 2019 14:41
Bellarine Community Health uses Microsoft solution to streamline healthcare delivery
Bellarine Community Health on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula has undertaken a transformation using Microsoft’s cloud-based solution that streamlines the delivery of care and ensures compliance with modern healthcare expectations.
BCH says the use of the Microsoft solution has enabled it to provide the “right care, at the right place and at the right time”.
The healthcare group provides a broad range of primary care services – traversing general practice, pathology, podiatry, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and cardiac rehabilitation.
“With Microsoft 365 and Azure as BCH’s new cloud foundations, we’ve moved from an organisation from the 1980s into an organisation that’s well-placed to do what we need to do for the next 10-15 years,” says BCH chief executive Shane Dawson.
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17 July 2019
Hey Siri, does my baby have asthma?
A smartphone app that analyses the sound of coughs is proving to be a successful diagnostic tool in the assessment of paediatric respiratory conditions, researchers say.
A multicentre Australian study, recently published in Respiratory Research, found the app had high accuracy (between 81% and 97%) in diagnosing asthma, croup, pneumonia, lower respiratory tract disease and bronchiolitis in children.
The researchers, from Curtin University, compared the accuracy of an AI diagnosis and a traditional clinical diagnosis in more than 580 children aged between 29 days and 12 years.
For the AI diagnosis, an iPhone was held 25cm to 50cm away from the mouth with the microphone angled at 45 degrees to avoid any air hitting the microphone and obstructing the recording.
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Virtual cadavers score federal funding
Commercialisation grant to help medicos slice and dice.
A Sydney start-up specialising in virtual reality (VR) representations of medical imagery and cadavers has received almost $560,000 in the latest round of the federal government’s Entrepreneurs’ Programme.
Vantari VR won the funding in the programme's Accelerating Commercialisation round to further develop virtual reality cadaver technology to assist training delivery for doctors and improve patient outcomes.
The company is led by co-CEOs Dr Vijay Paul and Dr Nishanth Krishnananthan, a medical doctor with experience in emergency medicine and a surgeon respectively.
Vantari has already received support through health insurer HCF’s Catalyst program, in order to produce anatomical VR solutions that better illustrate structures and diseases than current 2D medical imaging tools like X-rays or MRI scans.
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Ministry focuses on integration
Wednesday, 17 July 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The Ministry of Health is looking to develop its integration capabilities in order to “improve access to and sharing of patient and clinical information to support improved health outcomes for New Zealanders”.
The Ministry has released a request for information for an integration tool and/or services, partner(s) and interoperability services.
Supporting documents say the Ministry is a central point of aggregation for health information about individuals and healthcare provision, and supports integration via its Health Integration Platform.
“As a result, many consumers, communities, sector participants, external organisations and partners need to access the information held by the Ministry,” the documents say.
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A new Health website for all Australians
The Department of Health has launched its new website. Find out what's changed and how you can provide feedback.
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Friday, 19 July 2019 11:16
AIIA urges govt to make changes in encryption law
The Federal Government's encryption law in its current form will have a negative impact on the country's ICT industry and block practitioners from innovating and exporting the products of their innovation, the Australian Information Industry Association claims.
In a statement, AIIA chief executive Ron Gauci said, in a submission to an ongoing inquiry into the legislation, that amendments that had been proposed, but not included, should be subject to comprehensive scrutiny and consultation with industry, privacy and security experts.
A review of the encryption law was begun by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security as soon as it was passed, on 6 December 2018, with a reporting date of 3 April. It was expected to provide some solace to the technology industry.
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Encryption laws to run up against CLOUD Act and GDPR: Law Council
Laws show the different path Australia is taking to privacy, the Law Council of Australia has said.
Australia's encryption laws are unlikely to be compatible with the United States' CLOUD Act, as well as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, the Law Council of Australia has said.
In a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's encryption law review, the Law Council said Australian law enforcement will have to continue seeking data through the slower mutual legal assistance treaties (MLAT), rather than the expedited service the CLOUD Act would offer once Canberra and Washington enter into an agreement.
"The Law Council considers that the current law in Australia as it relates to storing and accessing telecommunications data will be insufficient to allow Australia to qualify for entry into an 'executive agreement' with the US," the Council said.
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Wednesday, 17 July 2019 09:10
Home Affairs seeks retention of IP and MAC addresses and port numbers
The Department of Home Affairs wants IP addresses, MAC addresses and port numbers to be added to the list of data retained by providers under the existing data retention regime, according to a submission made to a review of the law.
The submission, made to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security review of the mandatory data retention regime that is part of the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act, also suggested that the period of data retention be extended beyond the current two years, though this point was not argued forcefully.
In arguing for retaining MAC addresses, the department submission said: "For example, including media access control (MAC) addresses and devices which identify serials would provide better information as to which device was being used at the time of an offence."
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Data retention: Government gave Optus ‘exemption’ from encrypting metadata
Data retention has improved the security of customer data, Home Affairs argues
Optus says that it would have struggled to comply with its legislative obligations without a decision by the government that exempted it from a requirement to encrypt all metadata collect as part of Australia’s data retention regime.
The Data Retention Act says a telecommunications provider “must protect the confidentiality of information that, or information in a document that, the service provider must keep, or cause to be kept” as part of complying with the regime, by “encrypting the information” and by “ protecting the information from unauthorised interference or unauthorised access”.
However, Optus revealed in a submission to a review of the data retention regime by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) that it had “applied for and received limited exemptions from the encryption obligation”.
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NBN Co hits gigabit HFC downloads with in-field DOCSIS 3.1 trial
Approaches gigabit upload speeds in lab trial
NBN Co says it hit speeds of up to 994 megabits per second over a hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) connection during an in-field trial of DOCSIS 3.1 technology.
The trial, staged in the Melbourne suburb of Templestowe, didn’t employ a retail service provider’s network. Instead it involved a Layer 2 connection directly between the home and the local NBN Point of Interconnect.
NBN Co said that non-NBN Telstra services were still being served from the optical node used in the trial.
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NBN Co says speed trials demonstrate ‘gigabit future’ of HFC network
NBN Co, the company building Australia’s broadband access network, says it has achieved trial download speeds of 994Mbps – or 1Gbps – in technology trials on its Hybrid-Fibre Coaxial (HFC) access network.
The company says the in-field trial, in Templestowe in outer Melbourne, demonstrates the potential for around 2.5 million homes and businesses that use or are due to be connected to the HFC access network across Australia.
NBN Co says that during the trial, next generation DOCSIS 3.1 technology demonstrated its capability over an expanded spectrum range to support future wholesale speed upgrades using a standard NBN HFC connection box in the home – with the trial providing “new insights to guide future technical development and planning".
A related lab test with DOCSIS 3.1 demonstrated trial upload speeds of 988Mbps, and both trials used the expanded spectrum range inside the coaxial cable that NBN says it will progressively start using as part of the introduction of DOCSIS 3.1 technology.
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NBN Co shies away from a Netflix tax debate that was misconceived
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
When NBN Co issued a consultation paper for a review of its pricing last month it ignited a storm of controversy and criticism in the specialist telecommunications media. It appeared to be preparing the ground for a "Netflix tax".
As it happens, that wasn’t its intention but even canvassing the possibility of differential pricing for video streaming made NBN Co the focus of a very sensitive and politically-charged debate about "net neutrality".
That’s a conviction that internet service providers should treat all users and all communications equally, not using pricing or "bandwidth-shaping’’ to discriminate in favour or against particular customers or services.
The issue is a vexatious one. Data consumption of telecom networks keeps rising inexorably and rapidly. On the NBN it is doubling every few years, driven mainly by video streaming.
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NBN Sky Muster Plus satellite trial averages 43Mbps
With one-quarter of all data unmetered.
Trial users of NBN Co’s Sky Muster Plus service had a quarter of their data use unmetered and averaged 43Mbps speeds, according to retail service provider SkyMesh.
The provider became the first to officially reveal outcomes of the trial as well as its retail prices and plans for Sky Muster Plus, which will be publicly available from August 9.
Sky Muster Plus is a 'premium' satellite service capable of bursting above 25Mbps and offering unmetered access to email, basic web browsing and some software updates.
Trials began in May and are ongoing, though SkyMesh is the first to reveal some of the trial experiences.
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Quantum discovery could change our lives
- 3:00AM July 18, 2019
Computing is about to take a quantum leap — thanks to a major breakthrough by renowned physicist and former Australian of the Year Michelle Simmons.
Along with her team at the University of NSW, Professor Simmons will today announce a technological breakthrough she says will create the “fundamental building block” for the creation of a scalable quantum computer.
Experts predict that quantum computers — light years ahead of today’s ordinary home computers in terms of speed and power — will revolutionise everything from business to the way we live.
In a paper published today in the prestigious science journal Nature, the UNSW researchers, led by Professor Simmons, reveal they have built a crucial building block for quantum computers — the world’s first two-qubit logic gate using atom qubits in silicon — and show that it is about 200 times faster than any other existing comparable technology.
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Enjoy!
David.
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