Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Sunday, August 11, 2019

AusHealthIT Poll Number 487 – Results – 11th August, 2019.

Here are the results of the poll.
Will The Government Actually Deliver On Making Paper Prescriptions Optional By The End Of 2019?

Yes 18% (22)

No 81% (100)

I Have No Idea 2% (2)

Total votes: 124

Well that was pretty clear. The overwhelming view is that it won’t happen in the timeframe claimed. We can all wait and see!

Any insights on the poll welcome as a comment, as usual.

A really great turn out of votes.

It must have been a pretty easy question as only 2/124 readers were not sure what an appropriate answer was.

Again, many, many thanks to all those that voted!

David.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Although I hold little hope Greg Hunt will deliver anything useful, the get out clause is in the title, “optional”. That is quite open to interpretation. Chris Bowen may prove to be a worthy opposition health minister but he still thinks like an opposition treasurer. Which is a shame as a privacy review with teeth would certainly go a long way to delivering trust, much needed to realise some of Chris Bowen’s wishlist

Anonymous said...

Interesting article in the Age this morning

Discount chemists the new Uber: Former ACCC chief backs pharmacy deregulation
Graeme Samuel says governments bowing to the Pharmacy Guild ought to have learned from the other industry to have been safeguarded from pro-competition reforms: taxis.

This process has been ignited. They always get some like this to light the fuse.

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

Interesting statement from Dr Tony Bartone:
https://ama.com.au/media/pharmacy-guild-prescribes-poor-patient-outcomes

"AMA President, Dr Tony Bartone, said today that if the Pharmacy Guild wants pharmacists to be doctors, then pharmacists should spend 10 to 15 years studying for a medical degree.

Dr Bartone was responding to the release of a Pharmacy Guild policy paper – Community Pharmacies: Part of the Solution – which proposes that pharmacists move way beyond their scope of practice to perform specialised roles currently undertaken by GPs.

Dr Bartone said that patients and communities receive the highest quality health care when health professionals work as a team within their respective scopes of practice.

“Patient care suffers, and health and lives are put at risk, when there is fragmentation of health care and the loss of continuity of quality health care,” Dr Bartone said."

This would seem to be at odds with ADHA's strategy of involving pharmacists in using myhr.

Bernard Robertson-Dunn said...

If anyone is interested in the risks of a critical centralised infrastructure - you know, like ADHA is trying turn myhr into?

Defence department's secure internal network hit by 'crippling' computer outages
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-15/defence-departments-secure-internal-network-computer-outages/11417038

"Frustration is growing within the Defence workforce as crippling computer outages continue to hamper the organisation's highly secure internal network.

Staff are going home early because the IT failures are preventing them from being able to do their jobs.

The ABC has learnt the "Defence PROTECTED Network", which is currently being upgraded, has experienced problems for several days and caused disruptions for about 80,000 staff."

PROTECTED is the least secure environment - most government departments have the same security level.

This is a quote from the Defence Whte paper 2009

"The ICT reform program will deliver business efficiencies and lower costs in Defence's information and communications technologies. This will be achieved through such measures as the development of a single Defence desktop environment, an improved network to support higher-speed connectivity, and the consolidation of Defence's data centres, from 200 to fewer than ten. More robust governance arrangements for Defence's ICT spending and the management of the Defence information environment will also be implemented. These measures will improve operational effectiveness and corporate functions."

I was involved in some strategic planning on this project. I argued

a) that they shouldn't even try it because of system resilience issues when reducing the number of data centres and implementing a single desktop environment based upon virtual desktops which is even more centralised.

and b) it would take far longer than they expected (which was about 3-5 years). It's been over a decade now and they are still working on it, spending far more than they intended and failed to make the savings they predicted.

Sound familiar? And this is Defence, not some little policy department.

Will Health/ADHA learn from this? No.

Will they try and make myhr an essential part of the critical health infrastructure? they are already trying.

BTW, I got off that project as soon as I could. The culture was one of "don't tell me why this can't be done, we just have to get on with it." Sound familiar?

Anonymous said...

AMA President, Dr Tony Bartone, said today that if the Pharmacy Guild wants pharmacists to be doctors, then pharmacists should spend 10 to 15 years studying for a medical degree - so just what did the AMA think was going to happen when they sat on the fence and let this all happen at the expense of building the required infrastructure to support clinical messaging?

There is not such thing at ADHA as a risk, only a Twitter photo opportunity

Anonymous said...

So who is the ADHA backing?

Pharmacists call for Medicare rebates for medical consultations at the chemist
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pharmacists-call-for-medicare-rebates-for-medical-consultations-at-the-chemist-20190815-p52hg9.html

Pharmacists are pushing the Morrison government for changes to the Medicare system to allow Australians to claim rebates for vaccinations and medical consultations at their local chemist.

Pharmacy Guild vice president Anthony Tassone, who runs a pharmacy in Melbourne, said pharmacists should be allowed to give travel vaccinations, prescribe the contraceptive pill and treat complaints like erectile dysfunction and urinary tract infections.

Anonymous said...

Don’t believe ADHA has any credibility or political capital for any party to care who they back. They seem fixated with the fax. Slogans and twitter will only get you so far.