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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Well it seems to have been a huge week and for all the wrong reasons. We have reports of misusing myHR data, budget over-runs and a total fiasco with HealthEngine and the ACCC and cops behaving badly before we get to the routine nonsense – enjoy the browse!
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Insurers Accessing MyHealth Records of Australians
Published: 09 August 2019 Written by 2CC Podcasts
Category: Podcasts
News today says that Insurance Companies are accessing the medical records of Australians to avoid making payments. Eddie Williams speaks with Former Howard Government Adviser and Cormorant Policy Adviser Terry Barnes about what it means for those who still have a My Health Record.
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Insurers snooping in our health records
Revelations that the $44 billion life insurance industry still enjoys largely unfettered access to sensitive information comes amid rising consumer concern over the privacy of medical records, centred on the government’s My Health Record system.
Life insurers have trawled through the medical records of 150,000 Australians in an attempt to deny payouts in the 18 months since a parliamentary inquiry called for new restrictions on access to personal health data.
The government has not responded to the inquiry’s recommendations, which included real-time notifications alerting people to when insurers were accessing their records, while legal experts have sounded the alarm on the need for further consumer protections.
They have also warned that a new voluntary industry code of conduct will not stop insurers demanding full medical records under the threat of refusal to provide cover or stall the processing of a payout.
Revelations that the $44 billion life insurance industry still enjoys largely unfettered access to sensitive information comes amid rising consumer concern over the privacy of medical records, centred on the government’s My Health Record system. More than 2.5 million people opted out of the database after the government extended the deadline to January this year, but about 90 per cent of Australians’ records are now held on the system.
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Doctors risk jail over My Health insurance leaks
The Australian Digital Health Agency has warned doctors against passing on medical information gathered through the government’s My Health record database to life insurers under threat of large fines or jail.
The agency yesterday said new laws prevented My Health records being accessed by life insurance companies, and medical practitioners were banned from accessing the database to pass on the information, even if patients had given their consent.
Lawyers have raised concerns that doctors who have access to the records will not heed the laws, after The Australian reported warnings of the need for further consumer protections after the life insurance industry created a new voluntary code to regulate access to medical information.
Without full access to medical records, life insurance companies can threaten to refuse cover or not process insurance claims.
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Response to The Australian article ‘Insurers snooping in health records’
9 August, 2019 - 13:15
The article ‘Insurers snooping in health records’ published by The Australian on 9 August contains incorrect information relating to insurance companies’ access to information in My Health Record.
It is against the law for a life insurance company to access the My Health Record system for insurance purposes.
Further, medical practitioners cannot use information from a person’s My Health Record for these purposes to share with insurance companies, regardless of whether the patient has provided consent.
Criminal offence and civil penalties include up to five years in jail and/or up $315,000, for natural persons, and/or up to $1.5 million in fines for bodies corporate.
ENDS
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'Particularly egregious': HealthEngine in court over doctored GP reviews
By Jenny Noyes
August 8, 2019 — 10.40am
Australia's biggest online GP booking service is facing court over allegations it engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct, after it was revealed the company doctored negative reviews and shared patients' private health data with insurers.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced on Thursday it had launched legal proceedings against HealthEngine in the Federal Court over its manipulation of patient reviews, originally revealed by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age last year.
Between March 31, 2015 and March 1, 2018, it's alleged HealthEngine refused to publish negative feedback, disregarding around 17,000 reviews and altering around 3000 others to embellish on positives or remove negative aspects before publishing them.
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HealthEngine, medical booking app, facing multi-million-dollar fines for selling patient health data
8 August, 2019
Australia's biggest medical appointment booking app HealthEngine is facing multi-million-dollar penalties after an ABC investigation exposed its practice of funnelling users' personal health information to law firms.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has launched legal action against the Perth-based company in the Federal Court, accusing it of misleading and deceptive conduct.
In June last year, the ABC revealed HealthEngine was passing on users' most sensitive health information to law firms seeking clients for personal injury claims.
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HealthEngine sold patient data to insurers, ACCC says
The consumer watchdog has launched federal court action against online health booking platform HealthEngine, alleging the tech company sold sensitive patient data to insurance brokers and meddled with patient reviews and ratings.
ACCC chair Rod Sims said that over a period of three years, between March 2015 and 2018, HealthEngine manipulated patient reviews and refused to publish negative reviews.
“We will argue that HealthEngine disregarded around 17,000 reviews, and altered around 3,000 in the relevant time period,” he said in a statement.
“The ACCC considers that the alleged conduct by HealthEngine is particularly egregious because patients would have visited doctors at their time of need based on manipulated reviews that did not accurately reflect the experience of other patients.”
According to Mr Sims, between April 2014 and June 2018 the company gave patient names, phone numbers, email addresses and date of birth information of over 135,000 patients to private health insurance brokers for a fee.
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HealthEngine sued for allegedly selling patient data
Aug 8, 2019 — 12.53pm
The consumer regulator has launched legal action against healthcare booking platform HealthEngine for allegedly sharing patient information with health insurance brokers for a fee without their consent and for allegedly manipulating patient reviews and ratings of health practices.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission alleges HealthEngine sold the the information of 135,000 patients, including their name, phone number, email address and date of birth, to private health insurance brokers between 30 April 2014 to 30 June 2018.
The ACCC claims HealthEngine failed to adequately inform its users that it would give their private information to the brokers for a fee.
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ACCC takes HealthEngine to court over alleged data misuse
Calls for stronger consent, notification requirements.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has kicked off proceedings in the federal court against HealthEngine, alleging the online booking and review platform of misleading and deceptive conduct.
HealthEngine, which the ACCC called Australia’s largest online marketplace in the court filing, last year revealed a data breach in which 59,600 pieces of patient feedback “may have been improperly accessed”.
However, the ACCC now alleges that between April 2014 and June 2018 HealthEngine gave information including names, phone numbers, email addresses, and dates of birth of over 135,000 patients to private health insurance brokers for a fee, “without adequately disclosing to customers it would do so”.
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HealthEngine sold information on 135,000 patients: ACCC
Company has an appointment in the Federal Court after consumer watchdog accuses it of deceptive conduct
8th August 2019
By Paul Smith
The ACCC has taken legal action against Australia’s largest booking website, accusing it of deceptive conduct by doctoring thousands of patient online reviews about GP clinics.
HealthEngine, founded by Perth GP Dr Marcus Tan, was at the centre of a media storm last year when it emerged that reviews were being embellished by the company before being posted to make them more positive.
The ACCC is accusing HealthEngine of misleading patients by giving them a “false impression about the quality of health practices that could be accessed” through its website.
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Health Minister blames hospital staff 'user error' for major IT problems
By Stuart Layt
August 9, 2019 — 3.36pm
Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles insists major problems with new ordering software in the state’s hospitals are due to "user error" and not a problem with the multimillion-dollar system itself.
The $135 million software was commissioned to replace supply-ordering software that was more than 20 years old.
Reports emerged on Friday that staff had been forced to buy supplies manually using credit cards and stockpile essentials such as bandages after the new S/4HANA system crashed soon after launching on August 1.
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NSW seeks better analytics, consistency with digital health record initiative
NSW Health seeks input on Single Digital Patient Record
NSW Health has launched a formal market engagement process to as it seeks to boost the capabilities of the state’s electronic medical record system.
“NSW Health is considering a range of options to enhance its electronic medical record capability into the future,” an eHealth NSW spokesperson told Computerworld.
A Single Digital Patient Record (SDPR) “will provide a holistic, state-wide view of a patient’s health care information,” states a request for information (RFI) document released this week by NSW Health.
“The SDPR will support safe, high-quality healthcare for patients and a more consistent ICT user experience for healthcare providers.”
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NSW to consider opening ehealth records to patients
As part of system upgrade proposal.
NSW Health has begun considering what the state's future electronic medical record might look like, including whether to give patients access to their clinical information.
Last week the department's digital arm eHealth NSW approached the market to inform its plan to develop a single digital patient record (SDPR).
The SDPR is pitched as “a holistic, state-wide view of a patient’s health care information” that will “support safe, high quality healthcare for patients”.
The project is expected to build on the state’s existing electronic medical record (eMR2), which is currently found in more than 90 percent of public hospitals.
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Over 30,000 Australians cancelled their My Health Record in under two months
30,402 individual records were cancelled in just over seven weeks.
The federal government has provided an update on the number of My Health Records still active, revealing in a response to Questions on Notice that Australians are still cancelling the online medical file.
Of those who had a record created automatically for them on 22 February 2019, 30,402 had subsequently cancelled their record as at 14 April 2019.
It was revealed during Senate Estimates in February that a little over 2.5 million Australians had opted out of the government's online medical file.
A week prior, the Department of Health disclosed that by mid-November, almost 300,000 Australians had removed themselves from the My Health Record system and cancelled their existing electronic medical record.
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GP corporate giant 'concerned' for patient privacy under PIP revamp
Healius points out that practices have no control over the data extraction software
5th August 2019
GP corporate giant Healius says it cannot guarantee the privacy of patients whose information is released under the revamped Practice Incentive Program because it has no way of knowing what is being taken from practice software.
Last week marked the beginning of the PIP quality improvement (QI) incentive, where practices can generate funding of up to $50,000 per year for sharing de-identified patient data.
The data includes information around 10 ‘quality improvement measures’ such as patients’ sexual orientation, diabetes status and smoking (see box for full list).
It will be taken from GP practice software by local primary health networks using extraction software provided by the networks themselves.
But there are growing concerns that the Department of Health safeguards around the information extraction and the way it will be stored are weak, potentially placing patient privacy at risk.
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9 August 2019
Let’s not fool ourselves about the PIP QI
It looks like patient care and quality improvement have taken a backseat in the new Practice Incentive Program (PIP QI).
To be eligible to receive payments under the revamped quality improvement program, practice owners need to show Primary Health Networks (PHNs) that they are recording information such as smoking status or influenza immunisations, and hand over de-identified patient data to their local PHN.
It is important that practices record this kind of information but the requirements are set at a rookie-level – a bit like learning how to write, no, how to hold a pencil.
Not surprisingly, the new program is regarded by many practice owners and managers as “easy money”. I don’t blame them as the Medicare freeze has affected us all – but the Federal Department of Health is fully aware it is dangling a carrot in front of a profession in dire need of adequate funding.
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Friday, 09 August 2019 11:59
Fujitsu uses AI to collaborate on brain aneurysm research project
Fujitsu Australia is collaborating with GE Healthcare, Macquarie University and Macquarie Medical Imaging on a research project to improve brain aneurysm diagnoses.
The project is focused on developing a solution that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and monitor brain aneurysms on scans faster and more efficiently, and has already received a Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) grant of $2.1m from the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science.
Fujitsu will lead the initiative and leverage its AI and digital solutions capability through its dedicated innovation team in Australia – and GE Healthcare will contribute through its leading medical imaging technology.
In addition, Macquarie University and Macquarie Medical Imaging will provide clinical expertise for the development and testing of the technology, with the project initially focused on refining the technology with a view to creating a fully commercialised solution that will be distributed initially through radiology practices in Australia and eventually on a worldwide basis.
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Will electronic scripts be a reality by the end of the year?
Pharmacies need software that meets privacy and security standards
5th August 2019
The Department of Health has promised to complete its national, paper-free e-prescribing system before the end of 2019, allowing pharmacists to dispense legally valid scripts issued via doctors' clinical software.
But pharmacies and GPs who wish to use an e-script will need software that meets privacy and security standards. These standards are in development and might not be ready until Christmas.
The reform was first announced in May 2018 when the government earmarked $30 million for paperless prescribing in the 2018 federal budget.
However, it wasn’t immediately clear what the money was funding. The department subsequently explained that the funding was for existing GP and pharmacy software to undergo the technical changes necessary for the e-scripts to meet the legal requirements demanded of paper scripts.
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How 'anonymous' was that health department data dump?
Antony is a medical reporter with a special interest in technology and pharmacy.
6th August 2019
In 2016, the federal Department of Health published the MBS data of 2.5 million ‘anonymous’ Australians online.
It was removed after researchers identified doctors in the data. But the same researchers claimed there was a bigger scandal.
They said if a celebrity, for example, underwent a well-publicised procedure on a certain date, and if only one person claimed the relevant MBS item on that date, it must be them.
At this point, you might be interested in all the MBS claims by this ‘anonymous’ individual, perhaps an abortion or PBS scripts for antidepressants.
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Thousands of medical histories exposed in data breach
By Ben Grubb
August 7, 2019 — 5.31pm
Tens of thousands of Australians have had their medical histories and other private information exposed in a large data breach of a company that enabled them to participate in paid clinical trials.
The database belonging to Neoclinical exposed approximately 37,000 people's contact information and their responses to personal medical questions qualifying them for clinical trials, which included information about diagnoses, illicit drug use and treatments.
According to US cyber security company UpGuard, which uncovered Neoclinical's unsecured database on the internet, there were 12,388 individuals from NSW and 4916 from Victoria in the exposed database. The rest were from New Zealand or other Australian states and territories.
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NT police chief admits officers breached privacy of public servant's medical records
8 August, 2019
Reece Kershaw, the Northern Territory's Police Commissioner and soon-to-be federal police chief, has admitted some of his officers inappropriately accessed the private medical records of a public servant.
Key points:
- NT Police Commissioner admits his officers breached the privacy of a NT health worker
- Department of Health denies leaking the confidential information
- Unions and doctors' group call for an explanation from both NT Police and the Health Department
But NT Police won't say if the department the man worked for was involved, nor if the officers responsible have been disciplined.
Luke Horsfall, 34, worked for the NT Department of Health since 2004 but has since had his employment terminated — he claims unfairly.
Mr Horsfall was a member of a gym in Alice Springs that was available only to NT Government employees.
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Digital transformation is critical to improving Australia's pharmacies
Nathan Eddy | 06 Aug 2019
Pharmacies will need to deploy the tools for digital transformation over the next five years to help raise accountability standards and provide better, more efficient care.
These were among the findings of a digital health report from the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia intended to help guide the implementation of digital tools to reduce waste, educate patients and improve their treatment.
The report cited real-time prescription monitoring, electronic prescriptions and pharmacist input into the country’s My Health Record electronic health record system as among the top areas where investment was needed.
The PSA report, "Connecting the Dots: Digitally Empowered Pharmacists," outlines the future of pharmacy where a range of digital systems provides seamless, more customised clinical care and better medical outcomes.
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Brisbane pharmacist used child to steal Ritalin for his own use
By Toby Crockford
August 5, 2019 — 12.36pm
A Brisbane pharmacist wrote a prescription for 100 Ritalin tablets, a stimulant used to treat ADHD, for a 10-year-old child but took the medication home for his own personal use.
Neither the child nor the child's parent had requested the tablets and the pharmacist later told investigators he ingested 10 of the pills to help him stay awake to finish a business tender he was working on.
Methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin, is used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and narcolepsy.
The pharmacist, Danny Paul Agnola, tried to stop the publication of his misconduct in the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, but it was refused so the case could serve as a warning to practitioners.
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Under pressure
A Queensland pharmacist has been reprimanded after stealing Ritalin from his workplace, which he said he did to cope with work and life pressures
A pharmacist engaged in professional misconduct by stealing Ritalin tablets from his workplace for personal use, a tribunal has found.
The pharmacist was working on a casual basis at a Brisbane pharmacy when on 20 November 2016 he dispensed a prescription for 100 Ritalin 10mg tablets for a 10-year-old child.
However neither the child nor his parent or guardian had requested that medication be dispensed.
The Ritalin was taken from the controlled drug safe and entered into the controlled drug register, and the medication dispensed and placed in the pharmacy dispensary.
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Leading psychiatrist backs using PBS data to track down patients with bipolar disorder
Professor Ian Hickie says the government did not breach anyone's privacy in controversial mail-out
7th August 2019
One of Australia’s leading psychiatrists has defended the Federal Government's use of PBS data to track down patients with bipolar disorder for research studies.
Doctors raised concerns last week after 50,000 patients prescribed lithium carbonate received letters in the mail inviting them to sign up to a study by a research group at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane.
The mail-out was organised by the Department of Human Services on behalf of the research group, which was tasked with investigating genetic and environmental risk factors influencing bipolar disorder, and treatment responses.
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Westmead wins Google AI grant for digital health project
$1 million for adaptive cardiac care.
The Westmead Applied Research Centre (WARC) has won Australia’s first Google AI Impact Challenge prize in digital health in a bid to reduce the risk of heart attacks.
The grant means Google’s AI expertise and $1 million in cash will be available to support WARC’s research into combining “digital footprints” of data gathered from smartphones and wearable devices with clinical outcomes for people presenting to hospitals with chest pain.
The program will initially be centred around the Western Sydney Local Health District (which runs WARC with the University of Sydney) to deliver tailored advice and ‘nudges’ to participants, the university said.
Professor Clara Chow, a cardiologist at Westmead Hospital and WARC academic director, was presented the prize on Wednesday by Google Australia managing Director Melanie Silva and federal minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews.
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Google AI cash to help Sydney Uni cut heart attack risk
$1 million prize to help address global killer
The University of Sydney will use a $1 million prize from Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org to aid the development of an AI-based digital health program to cut the risk of heart attack.
The university’s Westmead Applied Research Centre (WARC) was today announced as the winner of the inaugural Google.org AI Impact Challenge prize.
The program will initially focus on Western Sydney health services. Sydney Uni said it will “deliver tailored advice and nudges using machine learning to participants who have presented at hospital with chest pain, harnessing their digital footprint to reduce the risk of a heart attack.”
It will draw clinical data as well as data from mobile apps and wearable devices.
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NSW govt considers making data breach reporting mandatory
Reviews existing voluntary scheme.
The NSW government has begun reviewing its voluntary data breach notification scheme to determine whether the state's agencies and local councils should be required to report data breaches.
The Department of Communities and Justice last month opened consultation on whether a mandatory reporting scheme along similar lines to the federal model is needed.
Under existing privacy legislation in NSW, state government organisations are not required to report data breaches. They are also not covered by the federal reporting scheme, along with local councils and organisation with a turnover of less than $3 million a year.
The consultation comes just weeks after the NSW opposition reignited its push for mandatory data breach laws that would required state agencies to notify affected individuals and the NSW Privacy Commissioner after a “serious” breach of privacy.
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Anglicare Southern Queensland untangling its data to prepare for the future of care
The organisation is well on its way towards closing down its last Access database, after previously having 30 scattered around.
Anglicare Southern Queensland boasts a little over 3,000 employees that together service around 54,000 customers each year. And as its enterprise applications manager Brett Wallis said, the organisation performs a "ridiculous" number of visits each year.
Anglicare reaches out to all of Southern Queensland -- metro and rural -- across a number of different streams ranging from community service, home visits, residential care, children and families, mental health, to homelessness, to name a few.
With insight on thousands of customers and information on every interaction, Wallis said data is invaluable to Anglicare.
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UNSW Sydney, George Institute partner on health startup programme Health10x
Nathan Eddy | 07 Aug 2019
The University of New South Wales Sydney is partnering with India-based medical research institute The George Institute for Global Health on a programme called Health10x to accelerate and scale up startups focused on healthcare.
Delivered by UNSW's Entrepreneurship Unit, the 20-week programme will include five health startups providing products and services focused on chronic diseases.
The programme includes a six-day immersion trip to India to expose the five startups to the country's healthcare sector, where they will work on projects like low-cost point of care testing for diabetes and innovative treatments for heart failure.
"Our aim is to help scale-up and deliver products that will help improve the health of millions of people worldwide," Dr. Elizabeth Eastland, director of entrepreneurship at UNSW Sydney, said in a statement.
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Electronic clinical notes deployed across Waitematā DHB
Wednesday, 7 August 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
More than 100,000 electronic clinical notes have been created on an inhouse-developed solution being deployed across all inpatient beds at Waitematā District Health Board.
eProgress Notes uses predefined templates that users can personalise to make it quick and easy to enter free text as well as draw and edit images.
It has been steadily rolled out across North Shore Hospital and Waitakere Hospitals and is now in use on 400 beds.
Between 3000–4000 clinical notes are being written every day on the system, with 100,000 notes produced since it was first piloted in April 2019.
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Industry View: The importance of health IT standards
Wednesday, 7 August 2019
Regular column by Scott Arrol, NZHIT CEO
Standards are key to NZHIT’s vision of digital technology enabling world-class health and wellbeing for all New Zealanders.
NZHIT’s vision is that there will be world-class health and wellbeing for all New Zealanders fully enabled by digital technology. This is supported by NZHIT’s purpose to provide an open environment that enables a co-ordinated, informed voice that maximises health, social and economic value for New Zealand through digital technology.
Standards are a key enabler for achieving this vision and purpose as they create consistency, set levels of expectations and provide the ability for various digital systems to interoperate, exchange data and support clinical decision making. NZHIT supports the work underway within the Ministry of Health, and across New Zealand’s health agencies, to partner in the strengthening of standards as they relate to health IT solutions.
Need for collaboration to ensure appropriate standards
It is very important that policymakers, healthcare providers, funders, researchers and industry partners work together in this regard so that standards are fit for purpose, sustainable and enduring over the long run. In addition, all standards adopted in this country must have international applicability that supports export opportunities, as well as enabling global operators to view New Zealand as a stable market within which to invest.
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A day of practising medicine... sans computer
Dr Duvefelt, aka 'A Country Doctor', is a family physician in the US.
9th August 2019
It wasn’t even nine o’clock when the screen on my laptop suddenly froze. From that moment until my last patient left the building, my clinic had no internet.
For my part, the day went pretty smoothly, mostly because of some of my own work habits.
It also helped that it was a warm, sunny day and my schedule was on the light side.
Others have frowned at my old-fashioned work habits, but this is what I do:
Printing the last office note
For all pre-booked visits, we print the last office note. We also print important lab results and outside reports.
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Down-to-earth boss determined to put NBN on fast track
For a decade Stephen Rue cut his teeth in the rough and tumble of the Australian media industry.
From 2003 to 2013 he was News Corp’s numbers man in the country of its birth, also serving on the boards of Foxtel, REA Group and the Melbourne Storm NRL club.
Few expected he would re-emerge in 2014 as CFO of NBN Co, the government enterprise building the National Broadband Network long plagued by political sniping, cost blowouts and heavily criticised by the public since its birth in April 2009.
Then last year Rue, a chartered accountant by training, succeeded American Bill Morrow as NBN chief executive for a five-year term.
While JB Rousselot, NBN’s head of strategy and a close personal friend of then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, was reportedly a candidate for the CEO role, Rue was the board’s unanimous choice. Intriguingly, the Irishman says his decision to join NBN came from the heart.
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ACCC warns NBN over cutting entry-level plans
- 12:00AM August 7, 2019
ACCC boss Rod Sims has warned NBN Co against pulling the plug on entry-level plans as the company continues discussions with the telcos on wholesale prices.
“NBN Co’s wholesale prices have to make sure entry level services remain viable,” Mr Sims told The Australian. “A consumer should be able to move from their existing ADSL services to a 12 megabits per second (Mbps) service at no extra cost. The elimination of the 12Mbps and 25Mbps services is a big issue for us; they cannot be removed.”
NBN Co and the telcos have once again locked horns over wholesale pricing, with Telstra boss Andrew Penn last week calling for cuts to wholesale prices.
In addition to price cuts, Telstra wants the NBN to offer a $10-a-month voice-only service for customers wishing only to operate landlines and a discounted service for low-income and vulnerable Australians.
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Tuesday, 06 August 2019 11:45
‘Underperforming’ broadband services still a problem for consumers says ACCC
Underperforming broadband services are still a problem for some consumers, with a newly publish report revealing that 12.4% of consumers continue to experience underperforming services that “rarely come close to reaching their maximum plan speed”.
The sixth Measuring Broadband Australia report from the competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), released on Tuesday, reveals that broadband speeds slowed slightly during the busy evening hours - but overall results continue to be good.
The Commission says that these are services that achieve less than 75% of their advertised speeds in almost all speed tests, with most of the affected consumers paying for NBN50 or NBN100 plans over Fibre to the Node (FTTN) connections.
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More than one in 10 NBN services ‘underperforming’, with FTTN the worst offender
ACCC chief calls for problems with in-home wiring to be addressed
The latest report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s broadband performance project reveals that greater than one in 10 NBN services are categorised as “underperforming”.
The ACCC today released its sixth Measuring Broadband Australia report, prepared by UK company SamKnows using probes in volunteer households with NBN connections. Of the 1095 NBN services tested for the report, 12.5 per cent were categorised as underperforming: That is, even outside of peak usage periods they fail to achieve speeds that approach the wholesale speed tiers of the NBN plans consumers are paying for.
SamKnows categorises a connection as underperforming if in no more than 5 per cent of its speed tests during a reporting period it achieves faster than 75 per cent of the maximum plan speed.
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NBN Co floats making 100/40Mbps plans business-only
Residential users could be shifted to new 110/20Mbps tier instead.
NBN Co is considering “repositioning” the current 100/40Mbps residential broadband product as a business-only service.
The proposal is contained within the current NBN wholesale price review and is a previously unknown extension of the company’s future thinking around the 100Mbps tier.
When NBN Co launched the review in June, it revealed plans to create a cut-price 100Mbps service by slashing the uplink from 40Mbps to 20Mbps.
Under the proposal, the new 100/20 product - which has since been profiled as a 110/20Mbps service - would exist alongside the 100/40 product.
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Enjoy!
David.
This business about insurers' access to health data and ADHA's response.
ReplyDeleteResponse to The Australian article ‘Insurers snooping in health records’
GPs are quite entitled to download patient data from myhr - after all that's what it is designed to do. When that happens the legislative protections of myhr cease.
If an insurer requests data on a patient, the GP will need to provide it.
From what the ADHA statement says, it would appear that a GP will need to keep track of data that they have obtained from myhr because they are not allowed to pass it on to an insurer. However it is quite possible that the GP has obtained the same data via other channels. In fact the GP may have provided some data themselves.
Does that mean they are or are not allowed to pass it on to an insurer?
My guess (IANAL) is that the only data that a GP is prohibited from passing on is that data that is not obtainable from somewhere else - i.e. has been obtained by the myhr system for the myhr system.
The situation is a clear as mud.
It gets even more complex if you start asking about the NDIS. Is the NDIA allowed to get myhr sourced data from GPs and or myhr itself?
IMHO, it is not the access to data that is the issue, it is the way the government is being economical with the truth when they make claims about you knowing who can see your data and that you have control over such access.
If the government is happy to mislead about some statements and situations (even if it is by omission), it puts into doubt their credibility and questions the wisdom of patients trusting the Federal government with their data.
Does user error = poor training?
ReplyDeleteRegarding QLD Health,
"..major problems with new ordering software in the state’s hospitals are due to user error.."
Sometimes poor training accounts for user error. Most of the time user error can be sheeted home to poor (loose, sloppy, inappropriate) software.
ReplyDeleteThe software programmer (designer) tested the software and said it worked. Of course it worked, that's what the programmer set out to prove. Ahh, but did they try to prove that it didn't work as was intended? No. That would have exposed them as having failed!
Your online door to your doctor's office.
ReplyDeleteYour doctor has selected MyHealthRecord.com so you can access your medical records anytime, anywhere, manage your office appointments, talk privately to your care team, and receive the best care possible.
Notice the lack of ".au"?
Notice what that US system can do that our excuse for a health record system can't?
I bet it didn't cost over $2b
Blame KPMG we raised major issues time and time again to those idiots and the spat out weak as shite risks and coaxed the Minister and Department into minefield. Why the are kept in the fold raises eyebrows.
ReplyDeleteAlways one or more of the 4 involved somewhere. Are they to blame?, probably in part but the accountability is with QLD health. I am sure there are a few “ministerial” milestones that were less than helpful.
ReplyDeleteQLD might do well to use the right tools for the right job. The consultancy houses will write you a good business case etc... but they are simply an added expense as the primary system integrators or in any delivery role. Look to organisation that do that for a living there are some pretty good ones in QLD and Australia in general. Why? Well simply because entities like KPMG business models revolve around generating revenue, delays and changes equal revenue. This is not a bad thing, what seems to be problematic is that at all levels of government the Bureaucracy no longer has control of these major implementations and is simple there to write endless cheque’s. hopefully this is a generational blip and as we are seeing, “retirement” will result in a natural rebalancing