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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All in all a seemingly quiet week with the odd bit of excitement with some tech improvements.
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ACT begins search for $70m digital health records platform
Gets ready to junk legacy systems.
ACT Health is waiting on the arrival of the territory’s new digital health records platform to begin decommissioning as many of its existing clinical systems as possible.
The agency responsible for the health needs of a 400,000-strong population made the declaration in a market approach this week for a provider to deliver the solution.
The solution, which was funded to the tune of $70 million in this year’s budget, will introduce a single health record for every person engaging with the ACT’s public healthcare system.
A central tenet of the ACT government's plan to deliver a “future-focused” public health system, the digital health record will capture all clinical interactions with patients in one central repository.
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Sigma enters into tele-health
Aug 19, 2019 — 12.00am
Sigma Healthcare has entered the tele-health market after making a small investment into Doctors on Demand, which offers professional online consultation and advice from Australian-registered doctors inside pharmacies.
This new online general practitioner service will initially focus on rural locations in Australia where there is a pharmacy but the local community has limited access to healthcare services.
So far 23 pharmacies across the Amcal, Guardian and Discount Drug Store banners are participating.
The drug wholesaler's boss Mark Hooper said this investment is a way to broaden the pharmacy healthcare offering.
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First pharmacy Telehealth service launches
Sigma Healthcare and its branded pharmacies have launched a partnership with Doctors on Demand called InClinic, which it says is Australia’s first Telehealth service in pharmacies
InClinic provides patients with timely access to professional online consultation and advice from an Australian registered doctor, inside a pharmacy.
This new InClinic online General Practitioner service will focus on locations in Australia where there is a pharmacy, but the local community has limited access to GP healthcare services.
To launch this partnership, 23 pharmacies across Australia will initially participate in the GP InClinic service.
A range of Amcal, Guardian and Discount Drug Store pharmacies will now be able to offer a secure and private link to the Doctors on Demand online platform in a professional consulting suite.
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Medicare confirms validity of electronic referrals
A six-month push for information has provided clarity on the previously murky area of Medicare rebates derived from electronic referrals.
Is it sufficient for an email referral to simply state that it is ‘signed electronically’.
21 Aug 2019
The Medicare benefit payable is dependent on a referral from another practitioner for certain services provided by specialists and consultant physicians.
Confusion has existed for years regarding the ‘acceptable evidence’ required if the referral is sent electronically; in particular, what constitutes a signature on these documents.
However, GP and digital health expert Dr Oliver Frank, a leading advocate for the digitisation of healthcare in Australia, believes he has finally found the answer to this long vexing question.
‘Medicare says if a specialist has received a referral and is going to claim at the higher rate, that referral must be signed,’ he told newsGP.
‘My question to Medicare was, “GPs are already sending referrals by the secure messaging systems but there is no actual legally valid signature on it. Does that matter?”’
Confusion has existed for years regarding the ‘acceptable evidence’ required if the referral is sent electronically; in particular, what constitutes a signature on these documents.
However, GP and digital health expert Dr Oliver Frank, a leading advocate for the digitisation of healthcare in Australia, believes he has finally found the answer to this long vexing question.
‘Medicare says if a specialist has received a referral and is going to claim at the higher rate, that referral must be signed,’ he told newsGP.
‘My question to Medicare was, “GPs are already sending referrals by the secure messaging systems but there is no actual legally valid signature on it. Does that matter?”’
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The ADHA is simplifying its clinical terminology database with AWS
The National Clinical Terminology Service has been re-engineered to reduce complexities and costs.
The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) is currently in the final phase of testing before going live with version 2.0 of the National Clinical Terminology Service (NCTS).
The NCTS, which is operated by the ADHA and was built together with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), is a cloud-based software service that provides healthcare professionals access to an up-to-date one-stop shop national standardised terminology database.
While the original NCTS was built on Amazon Web Services (AWS), ADHA director Dion McMurtrie said it was built as a traditional microservices-based infrastructure-as-a-service application, which presents several complexities.
"The current system may not look it but it's quite complicated from an operation use. There are a number of different services that are operating and are configured and glued together." he said, presenting at the AWS Public Sector Summit on Tuesday.
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How the ADHA is working to keep Australia's clinical systems talking
Redevelops national terminology service.
The Australian Digital Health Agency is preparing to rollout the latest version of the national service used to keep clinical systems terminology consistent across healthcare providers.
The agency best known for the My Health Record has been busy rebuilding the cloud-based national clinical terminology service (NCTS), which was first introduced in 2016.
A lynchpin for ensuring heath data interoperability in Australia, the database helps to keep the mishmash of systems used by healthcare professionals up-to-date and communicating in the same language.
It does this by making clinical terminology solutions such as the international recognised terminology standard SNOMED available through a centralised repository, with systems vendors able to integrate directly using APIs.
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Smartphones fight killer bacteria
Monday, 12 August, 2019
A combination of off-the-shelf quantum dot nanotechnology and a smartphone camera could soon allow doctors to identify antibiotic-resistant bacteria in just 40 minutes, potentially saving patient lives, Australian scientists believe.
Macquarie University and University of New South Wales researchers say they have developed a cheap and rapid way to identify antibiotic-resistant golden staph (MRSA).
Staphylococcus aureus (golden staph) is a common form of bacterium that causes serious and sometimes fatal conditions such as pneumonia and heart valve infections. Of particular concern is a strain that does not respond to methicillin, the antibiotic of first resort, and is known as methicillin-resistant S. aureus, or MRSA.
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SNAC plans to integrate its analysis tools with systems already used by clinicians, so that once a scan is taken, it is automatically routed to a server and processed.
Australia’s SNAC develops AI tools to improve brain scan analysis
By Dean Koh
August 21, 2019 03:17 AM
Sydney Neuroimaging Analysis Centre (SNAC), an Australian company co-located with the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre, is building AI tools to automate laborious analysis tasks in their research workflow, such as isolating brain images from head scans and segmenting brain lesions.
Additional algorithms are in development and being validated for clinical use. One compares how a patient’s brain volume and lesions change over time. Another flags critical brain scans, so radiologists can more quickly attend to urgent cases. The researchers develop their algorithms using the NVIDIA Clara suite of medical imaging tools, as well as cuDNN libraries and TensorRT inference software.
WHAT’S THE IMPACT
SNAC analyses patient MRI and CT scans acquired at clinical sites around the world. With a training dataset of more than 15,000 three-dimensional CT and MRI images, SNAC is building its deep learning algorithms using the PyTorch and TensorFlow frameworks.
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Sydney brain scanners speed up analysis with AI
Increasing accuracy with automation.
When it comes to cutting edge technology, ironies can sometimes be sublime.
The machines humans devised to imitate our brains through the development of artificial intelligence (AI) are now being deployed to analyse and identify how our brains work.
It's a growing market, because while we know some things about how brains operate at a physical level there still a lot we don't. And it's moving fast.
The Sydney Neuroimaging Analysis Centre (SNAC), which last year won a federal grant to enhance brain scans using AI, is now branching out and validating its algorithms for use in clinical settings.
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Hearts and minds behind brainchild to follow up the bionic eye
By Stuart Layt
August 22, 2019 — 9.33pm
An organisation being launched on Friday will enable researchers in bionic medicine to co-ordinate their efforts as they work on groundbreaking health projects.
Hear and Say Centre speech pathologist Dimity Dornan founded Bionics Queensland as a hub for collaboration in the bionics research sector.
Dr Dornan said Australian researchers were working on the bionic eye, the bionic heart and even the bionic pancreas, and Bionics Queensland would ensure similar advances were made in the future.
“Bionics Queensland will help fast-track other similar innovations and pave the way for cross-border partnerships, product development and commercialisation,” she said.
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Australia’s digital health players to present at RACGP eHealth forum
Digital health records, informatics, privacy and security. There is much to discuss in the eHealth space.
23 Aug 2019
Speakers at the forum, to be held on Thursday 29 August, include Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) CEO Tim Kelsey and chief information security officer Tony Kitzelmann, CSIRO product and program lead Kate Ebrill, and Health Informatics Society of Australia’s chief health informatician David Rowlands.
The RACGP’s digital health advocates will be well represented, with Chair of the RACGP Expert Committee – Practice Technology and Management (REC–PTM) Dr Rob Hosking and Chair of the Expert Committee – Quality Care (REC–QC) Associate Professor Mark Morgan also set to present.
The forum will include updates from the ADHA, which is responsible for My Health Record and work to improve secure messaging in healthcare, and the CSIRO’s efforts to improve data quality in primary care.
The RACGP’s digital health advocates will be well represented, with Chair of the RACGP Expert Committee – Practice Technology and Management (REC–PTM) Dr Rob Hosking and Chair of the Expert Committee – Quality Care (REC–QC) Associate Professor Mark Morgan also set to present.
The forum will include updates from the ADHA, which is responsible for My Health Record and work to improve secure messaging in healthcare, and the CSIRO’s efforts to improve data quality in primary care.
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National Clinical Terminology Service – Online tool demonstrations
Created on Thursday, 15 August 2019
15 August 2019: The National Clinical Terminology Service (NCTS) at the Australian Digital Health Agency has published recordings about online tools that help you browse through and map to SNOMED CT-AU and the Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT).
Webinars include:
Shrimp terminology browser – searching SNOMED CT-AU A webinar (approx. 25 mins) that demonstrates a popular terminology browser and gives tips and hints on how to search for SNOMED CT-AU content, including the AMT.
Snapper:Map – creating maps to SNOMED CT-AU A webinar (approx. 35 mins) that demonstrates a tool that enables the creation of simple maps between SNOMED CT-AU (including the AMT) and other data sources.
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Doctors may face prosecution for discussing euthanasia with patients over phone, computer
By Jacob Kagi
23 August, 2019
Doctors fear they could face criminal prosecution under WA's proposed voluntary assisted dying laws if they discuss euthanasia with patients electronically due to differences between state and Commonwealth law.
Key points:
- Concerns centre on discussions via phone calls, emails or telehealth
- WA's Health Minister concedes there are no guarantees for doctors
- Victoria has told doctors to limit non face-to-face conversations on euthanasia
The WA Government is seeking assurances doctors will not be placed at risk after concerns from medical groups that doctors who discuss voluntary euthanasia by phone, email or telehealth could fall afoul of Commonwealth laws that prohibit using a carriage service "for suicide related material".
The issue is being taken sufficiently seriously that Victoria has instructed doctors to limit discussions about voluntary assisted dying (VAD) to face-to-face conversations.
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NOS programme cut back and renamed
Monday, 19 August 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The National Oracle Solution programme has been scaled down and renamed after work on the project was suspended in September last year.
The Ministry of Health says NOS has been superseded by the Health Finance, Procurement and Information Management System. A new business case for the FPIM was endorsed by all 20 DHBs and approved by Cabinet in June 2019.
While NOS was intended to replace all 20 DHB’s finance and procurement systems, FPIM will be delivered to 11 DHBs, with four already live.
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National Screening Solution delayed
Wednesday, 21 August 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The roll-out of the National Screening Solution has been delayed to early 2020.
Whanganui and Mid-Central District Health Boards were due to go live with the National Bowel Screening Programme using the new NSS this October and November, but will now go live with the interim IT solution, BSP+.
The Ministry of Health signed with Deloitte in January 2019 for the build and operation of the NSS on Salesforce technology and the system was due to be operational by October this year.
National Bowel Screening director Stephanie Chapman says that “since signing the agreement Deloitte and Ministry have mobilised the project team, established the technology environments required to support the build of the NSS and started to build the IT system”.
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Chinese stealing health and medical research data: report
Hackers have been putting stolen medical records up for ransom.
The global healthcare sector, including Australia, faces increasing cyber threats and malicious activity from Chinese groups, a new report warns, with medical research a key target.
FireEye, a global intelligence-led security company with a Sydney base, has released a report outlining three of the most commonly used threats against healthcare organisations: data theft, cyber espionage and disruptive and destructive threats.
One key finding of the report is that Chinese groups feature prominently in these attacks.
“Since 2015, we have observed China-based threat actors conducting intrusions into healthcare organisations to steal patient personal information, likely to identify, track, and potentially exploit targeted individuals of interest to the Chinese government,” Charles Carmakal, vice president and CTO strategic services at FireEye, said.
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Questions emerge regarding new SA bid to ease ED strain
Ambulances have begun taking some patients to GP-led priority care centres in an effort to relieve Adelaide’s strained hospital network.
21 Aug 2019
Patients with simple fractures, cuts and abrasions, sports injuries and respiratory-tract infections will be among those who may be taken to the new priority care centres instead of overcrowded emergency departments (EDs), as part of a new South Australian trial.
The clinical decision to recommend patients go to the new centres – based in GP clinics – rather than EDs will be made by the attending ambulance paramedic in consultation with a senior medical officer in the call centre.
But RACGP SA&NT Chair, Dr Zakaria Baig, told newsGP he feels the 16-week trial will be challenged by funding issues and duplication of existing GP services.
The SA model is understood to be loosely based on Western Australia’s urgent care clinics, which the RACGP has previously questioned.
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The clinical decision to recommend patients go to the new centres – based in GP clinics – rather than EDs will be made by the attending ambulance paramedic in consultation with a senior medical officer in the call centre.
But RACGP SA&NT Chair, Dr Zakaria Baig, told newsGP he feels the 16-week trial will be challenged by funding issues and duplication of existing GP services.
The SA model is understood to be loosely based on Western Australia’s urgent care clinics, which the RACGP has previously questioned.
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Hackathon won by team aiming to improve healthcare communication
One GP’s frustration with communication in antenatal care may lead to a tech solution.
22 Aug 2019
For 16 years, Dr Bambi Markus has been stymied by one particular problem.
Now she’s taken the first step to solve it – and her team has won the RACGP’s first ever Hackathon to boot.
After thinking about the problem of communication in the antenatal space for years, Dr Markus finally had a chance to tackle it directly.
At the RACGP’s inaugural Hackathon held in Melbourne on 10 August, 35 participants shared ideas that might improve practice management or patient experience, aided by tech gurus.
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Now she’s taken the first step to solve it – and her team has won the RACGP’s first ever Hackathon to boot.
After thinking about the problem of communication in the antenatal space for years, Dr Markus finally had a chance to tackle it directly.
At the RACGP’s inaugural Hackathon held in Melbourne on 10 August, 35 participants shared ideas that might improve practice management or patient experience, aided by tech gurus.
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HIMSS Australia Digital Health Summit 2019
About this event
The HIMSS Australia Digital Health Summit 2019 will provide a critical platform for healthcare leaders to discuss "The Now and Next of Digital Health".
Exchange best practices and discuss the latest developments, challenges and to network, learn and explore solutions that leverage information and technology to improve patient safety, quality and efficiency to attain better clinical outcomes.
For more information: https://www.himssaustralia.org/sydney/2019
Event run by:
Information about third party events has been provided by the organiser or sourced from the event website. Inclusion in the events calendar should not be construed as endorsement of the event by the Agency. Information is provided as a service to the digital health developer community, and all event arrangements may be subject to change and should be confirmed with the event organiser.
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Morrison vows to tame Centrelink IT "beast"
Says $1bn WPIT overhaul must deliver for customers, not just bureaucrats.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has singled-out Centrelink’s $1 billion core system replacement as crucial for rebuilding the confidence of everyday Australians dealing with government online, warning public servants it must deliver improvements for customers, not just bureaucrats.
In his first major public address to the federal bureaucracy at Parliament's Great Hall on Monday, the former social services minister demanded “a step change in service delivery” from agency chiefs, warning them that the creation of Services Australia was not a “fancy rebranding exercise.”
Morrison’s tough talk is the strongest signal yet that he is personally prepared to come down hard on persistent customer experience issues across the former Human Services portfolio that range from ham fisted Robodebt calculations to unacceptable call-centre waiting times.
“The process we have been going through with WPIT now for some time is the biggest ICT program we have seen in the public service. It is a beast of a thing to accomplish. It has been going for many years and I think we are making extraordinary progress,” Morrison said before putting bureaucrats on notice.
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NIB touts tech rehab as financial restorative
For better cost management.
Newcastle-based health insurer nib has touted digital technologies and data science-enabled personalisation as the “bedrock” of its business strategy in its full-year results on Monday.
The company, which flagged a $149.3 million post-tax annual profit, said in its results the personalisation push would impact its relationships with members, its products and services, and the information provided to doctors and clinicians.
It's not a bad performance considering Australians are gradually abandoning private health cover in droves, with other insurers sure to be looking for lessons in what went right for nib.
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Wednesday, 21 August 2019 02:03
Booming North American wearables market hits US2 billion for quarter
The value of the North American wearables market reached US2.0 billion in Q2 2019, with shipments up 38% at 7.7 million units, according to a new report.
The report by global analyst firm Canalys reveals that, driven by booming smartwatch sales, North America remains the world’s most valuable wearable band market, despite being second to Greater China in terms of unit sales.
And in Q2 2019, more than 60% of Apple’s 4.7 million global watch shipments were into North America – with Fitbit coming second overall, with shipments up 18% due to it pushing more basic bands into the channel - but failing to ship as many smartwatches as in Q2 last year.
Canalys says that Apple and Samsung contributed most of the region’s value gains.
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NBN Co's FTTC and HFC build costs rise again
Civil works blamed.
NBN Co has seen further increases in its build cost-per-premises in the fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) and hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC) footprints, which it attributes to civil works and other causes.
In its FY19 results handed down late last week, NBN Co revealed that FTTC cost-per-premises (CPP) had risen from $3058 at the end of 2018 to $3129 by the end of June this year.
“The increase is due to greater civil works required in the build and higher customer connection costs,” chief financial officer Philip Knox said on an earnings call.
FTTC costs have now risen from $329 per premises since early trials of the technology.
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Contract Notice View - CN3621779
AusTender holds Contract and Standing Offer Notices for the 07/08 financial year forward. For information related to previous years, please refer to https://data.gov.au/dataset/historical-australian-government-contract-data.
Subcontractors: For Commonwealth contracts that started on or after 1 December 2008, agencies are required to provide the names of any associated subcontractors on request. Information on subcontractors can be sought directly from the relevant agency through the Agency Contact listed in each Contract Notice.
Labour Hire
Agency Details
Contact Name: Australian Digital Health Agency
Office Postcode: 2606
CN ID: CN3621779
Agency: Australian Digital Health Agency
Publish Date: 22-Aug-2019
Category: Temporary personnel services
Contract Period:
12-Aug-2019 to 30-Jun-2020
Contract Value (AUD): $141,357.61
Description: Labour Hire
Procurement Method: Open tender
ATM ID: DH2228
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Enjoy!
David.
re: Hearts and minds behind brainchild to follow up the bionic eye
ReplyDeletehttps://www.smh.com.au/national/queensland/hearts-and-minds-behind-brainchild-to-follow-up-the-bionic-eye-20190822-p52jvb.html
I wonder how much this report is hype, especially given this
https://www.ussc.edu.au/analysis/how-not-to-innovate-the-case-of-australias-bionic-eye
"Executive summary
Questions of commercial viability
While Australia’s bionic eye initiative had a clear goal — to build and commercialise a bionic eye — the initiative was launched without solid evidence that it could be successfully commercialised.
Weak collaboration
In keeping with former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s goal of building an Australian bionic eye, lead applicants for Australian Research Council support were Australian research and industry entities. Given the head-start international organisations held, this focus on Australian entities was a lost opportunity to build on results. There was, as well, poor collaboration between the research and industry partners."
As predicted, GPs are counter-proposing pharmacists:
ReplyDeleteDoctors raise the stakes in turf war with pharmacists
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/doctors-raise-the-stakes-in-turf-war-with-pharmacists-20190826-p52ks5.html
Doctors have upped the stakes in their turf war with pharmacists, hitting back at a threatened intrusion into their domain with a proposal to allow GPs to own chemists.
A coalition of general practitioners will lobby Health Minister Greg Hunt for the change, which doctors say would help give Australians access to cheaper medicines through increased competition - especially in regional areas.
...
It's wonderful how My Health Record is reducing all that fragmentation and those silos in our health care system.
But as long as we are going digital, all is well.
August 27 2019 10:58 AM. Removing that (IMHO) ridiculous constraint of GP Clinics not being able to run a pharmacy outlet can only be a good thing. As consumers, surely the government should be working to foster free-market competition, encourage consumer convenience.
ReplyDeleteMany countries have this model, and it works well.
And if you think the battle will only be between GPs and Pharmacists think again
ReplyDeletehttps://www.healthcareittoday.com/2019/08/27/amazon-battles-retail-pharmacies-for-control-of-patient-prescriptions/
Right - let's watch the GPs and Pharmacists get locked into a battle while ignoring the tsunami coming at them... just like watching the RACGP/AMA squabbling with the government over the MyHR while digital health comes screaming around the corner at them all
ReplyDeleteIf Amazon did come to Australia and fight for a share of the pharmaceutics business would they ask for access to My Health Record? After all, it is for the benefit of patients. Isn't it?
ReplyDelete