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 fairly quiet week featuring the ADHA failing to communicate and their CEO saying the My Health Record was a workflow improvement. Altogether really insightful stuff!
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Digital must seamlessly mesh with GP workflows: RACGP eHealth forum
Digital health has to work according to the way GPs practice if is to help – and not hinder.
29 Aug 2019
That was one of the overarching themes of the RACGP’s fifth annual eHealth forum, held in Melbourne on Thursday 29 August.
‘It should be naturally easy to use data in a well-designed data system to answer questions about our patients and our practices,’ RACGP Expert Committee – Quality Care (REC–QC) Chair Associate Professor Mark Morgan said in a forum Q&A session.
RACGP Expert Committee – Practice Technology and Management (REC–PTM) Deputy Chair Dr Steven Kaye told the audience that GPs do not see the value in data for data’s sake, but only in how clinically useful it is.
According to Dr Kaye, data analysis is not the GP’s role, and many GPs do not see the benefit of ensuring standardised data sets or sharing data.
‘It should be naturally easy to use data in a well-designed data system to answer questions about our patients and our practices,’ RACGP Expert Committee – Quality Care (REC–QC) Chair Associate Professor Mark Morgan said in a forum Q&A session.
RACGP Expert Committee – Practice Technology and Management (REC–PTM) Deputy Chair Dr Steven Kaye told the audience that GPs do not see the value in data for data’s sake, but only in how clinically useful it is.
According to Dr Kaye, data analysis is not the GP’s role, and many GPs do not see the benefit of ensuring standardised data sets or sharing data.
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Sydney nursing homes pilot flu outbreak alert app
Automated app to reduce hospitalisations.
Nursing homes in the Sydney Local Health District are trialling a new web-based app to coordinate and automate the district’s response to potential influenza outbreaks.
Staff at 30 aged care facilities will record data during the 12-month pilot about suspected cases of influenza-like illness and flu among residents at their nursing homes.
The FlueCARE (InFLUenza outbreak Communication, Advice and REporting) app’s algorithm continually analyses the data as it comes in, automatically triggering alerts when the criteria for an outbreak is reached.
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Tuesday, 27 August 2019 02:18
Sharing patient health data for secondary use denounced by doctors, lawyers, privacy experts
Digital rights organisation Electronic Frontiers Australia has joined with health policy group Future Wise, charity Digital Rights Watch and the Australian Privacy Foundation to call again for a comprehensive review of privacy provisions for healthcare data, at the same time as denouncing the sharing of patient health data for secondary use.
The call comes from the group following the HealthEngine scandal in 2018, and the recent use of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) data to assist recruitment into research on Bipolar disorder, when a Twitter user on Friday 23 August shared a SMS message attempting to recruit him into a clinical trial.
According to the Digital Frontiers this appears to have occurred through the use of Precedence Healthcare’s InCa (Integrated Care) health platform, and research by members of digital rights organisations on Monday revealeing that sensitive patient details—including contact details, demographics and complete medical histories—can be shared with a wide range of partners, including, it appears, private health insurers.
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BreastScreen WA launches client results portal for patients
Nathan Eddy | 28 Aug 2019
BreastScreen WA, a breast cancer-screening program established 30 years ago to provide care to the women of Western Australia, announced the launch of a new secure online results portal for its patients.
The Client Results Portal will send an SMS message to the patient containing a link to the electronic letter containing the results – the document can be securely downloaded as a PDF file onto the user's smartphone and can be printed or forwarded as well.
The opt in feature is part of an overall drive across the country's healthcare system to improve electronic engagement with patients – BreastScreen WA said it believes digitalization can help increase patient satisfaction with its services, thereby boosting participation in breast screening and improving rescreening rates.
BreastScreen WA already provides a number of online services to women in WA, including online appointment booking and secure electronic transfer of patient results to general practitioners.
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$11.7 million investment to keep Australians out of hospital
The Australian Government is investing $11.7 million in 10 prevention projects to keep Australians out of hospital.
Date published: 26 August 2019
The Morrison Government is investing $11.7 million in 10 prevention projects to keep Australians out of hospital.
Going back and forth to hospital can be stressful and inconvenient for patients and their families, and costly to Australia’s health system.
There are many drivers of hospital admissions, including chronic and complex diseases, acute medical and mental health conditions, palliative care and substance abuse.
In particular, mismanaged chronic conditions can be a key factor in high rates of hospital admission and readmission.
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Ministry defines minimum requirements for digital health services
Tuesday, 27 August 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The Ministry of Health has published a set of minimum requirements for digital, data and technology services that health organisations are expected to meet.
The Ministry says the requirements have been developed to encourage health organisations to ensure the digital services they use are safe, secure, integrated, reliable and provide appropriate access to data and information.
They specify that cloud delivery should be considered for all digital services in preference to locally hosted and configured technology and that application programming interfaces should be used where possible to support integration with and by others.
Organisations must govern the data they hold in line with data protection and use, privacy, social license and Māori data sovereignty guidelines.
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Tender open for new ACT Digital Health Record
Wednesday, 28 August, 2019
The ACT Government is calling for tenders for the territory’s new Digital Health Record (DHR) — a platform intended to complement My Health Record by storing and supplying more granular patient information.
According to the government’s website, this would include details on: observations performed by clinicians; who administered medication and when; and output from medical devices such as infusion pumps or blood pressure monitors.
It comes as part of the government’s Digital Health Strategy, released in May 2019, which aims to help ACT healthcare providers and patients take advantage of new technologies and medical advances.
Already, the government has allocated $106 million over eight years towards the project in the 2019–20 ACT Budget and a further $41 million from the 2018–19 Budget.
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The drugs causing rise in accidental overdose deaths
As the number of Queenslanders taking doctor prescribed drugs grows, so too does the number of accidental overdose deaths.
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OAIC reduces frequency of data breach reporting
Despite steady stream of notifications.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner is reducing the frequency of its statistical reporting on data breaches from every three months to six months, despite a steady stream of notifications in its latest report.
The sixth notifiable data breaches (NDB) scheme report [pdf], released late on Tuesday, reveals 245 notifications were received by the privacy and freedom of information authority between April and June 2019.
The figure is slightly higher than the 215 breaches reported in the three months to April 2019, but less than the record number of breaches received to date.
The majority of breaches were again attributed to malicious or criminal attacks, which accounted for 62 percent of all breaches, followed by human error (34 percent) and system faults (4 percent).
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Millions affected by data breaches
Data breaches are again on the rise, with millions of Australians believed to have been caught up in security breaches in the first half of this year.
A report from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), released late Tuesday night, revealed that millions of Australians are believed to have been affected by data breaches in the three months to 30 June.
High profile data breaches in the last few months include Canva, which had a breach affecting an estimated 139 million users globally, and property valuer Landmark White which lost millions of dollars in a breach earlier this year.
The OAIC’s report on the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme said there was one breach affecting “10,000,001 or more” people.
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https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/665719/report-reveals-more-mega-breaches-affecting-aussies/
Report reveals more mega-breaches affecting Aussies
Breach reports to OAIC grow significantly
Newly released figures reveal that millions of Australians are believed to have been affected by data breaches in the three months to 30 June.
For the second quarter running the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner’s report on the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme has included a breach affecting “10,000,001 or more” people.
The OAIC report notes that the figure “reflects the number of individuals worldwide whose personal information was compromised in this data breach, not only individuals in Australia, as estimated by the notifying entity”.
During the quarter, Australian-based online design service Canva revealed details of a security breach that is estimated to have affected some 139 million users.
The latest NDB report also includes one breach affecting 250,001-500,000 individuals, and two affecting 100,000-500,000 people.
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Patient Innovator Track at #FHIR DevDays
A new phenomenon at DevDays is the Patient Innovator Track. This track shows that patients are the ultimate beneficiaries of FHIR. The Patient Innovator Track provides a stage to patients who have taking control of their health by using the data of their disease and their treatment, or app developers who enabled patients to do so.
Pitches
The Patient Innovator Track takes place on Wednesday November 20th, the first day of the event. During 10 minutes’ pitches in the plenary room, the participants get the opportunity to demo their achievements.
Competition
Applicants first compete for an invitation to DevDays. Those who are invited, compete for the Patient Innovator Award. A jury will select the best presentation from the participants. The award is a contribution in kind by a sponsor. This could be free tooling or cloud services, developer or consultancy resources, space in the app store, promotion etc.
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ASIC vows crackdown on bank outages, data breaches and online fraud
Hit list for $400 million ‘strategic change program’ revealed.
Bank outages, spiralling online payments fraud and a slew of major corporate data breaches are set to feel the sting of regulatory leather after corporate and financial regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission revealed its four year hit list.
The corporate cop on Wednesday drew a line under the cuddly days of ‘light touch’ and industry initiated self-regulation, publishing its panned action and public to-do list that ASIC chairman James Shipton said is “underpinned by the ‘Why not litigate?’ operational discipline”.
The short, sharp message to banks, brokers and the consumer credit industry is that attempts to sweep shoddy behaviour and systemic deficiencies under the rug will be met with court action, public shaming, penalties and stiff fines.
Importantly, bank and digital payments outages, online and electronic card fraud, dodgy online consumer lending practices and lax IT and data security all make the cut on the list of activities set for a caning as ASIC moves to shake out escalating systemic risk from sectoral dependence on interconnected digital systems.
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PayID in new breach affecting customers at big four banks
By Jenny Noyes
August 26, 2019 — 1.26pm
More than 90,000 Australian bank customers have had their bank details and other personal data exposed after PayID was breached via Credit Union Australia, in the second major attack on the payment management system in recent months.
A spokeswoman for payments provider Cuscal, which is partnered with more than 120 banks and financial services institutions in Australia and overseas, said the breach originated with one of their clients and impacted "most organisations" that use PayID.
Cuscal released a statement on the weekend that "less than 92,000 or 3 per cent of the total 3.5 million customers who have registered for PayID" were impacted. The spokeswoman confirmed on Monday the number of affected accounts was "close to the upper limit" of 92,000.
A spokeswoman for Credit Union Australia confirmed on Monday the breach originated with its PayID accounts on August 16.
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Banks told to tighten security after payments data breach
Aug 26, 2019 — 5.06pm
New Payments Platform Australia, the real-time system owned by the big four banks and 11 other financial institutions, is under pressure to explain how almost 100,000 customers' personal details were accessed as part of its second data breach in three months.
Payments provider Cuscal confirmed on Sunday that hackers had accessed the PayID details of around 92,000 customers through its credit union client CUA.
Cuscal said in a statement that this represented 3 per cent of the 3.5 million registered PayIDs, which are phone numbers, email addresses or ABNs connected to bank accounts.
The attack is the second breach of the PayID system since June and has experts asking why extra protections were not in place to prevent it from happening again.
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Sunday, 25 August 2019 23:56
Warning on emergence of new SMS phishing scam
Security firm Proofpoint says that retailer Kmart’s recent warning of a new attack by a sophisticated SMS scam means that it is important for Australians to remain vigilant and aware of these types of attacks.
Proofpoint threat intelligence lead, Chris Dawson says the scam warned about by both Kmart and the NSW Police, claims Kmart customers have won a prize, and uses the real names of family and friends to increase the scam’s legitimacy.
And to claim the prize, the message asks users to pay a small fee.
“SMS phishing targeting consumers is on the rise, and cybercriminals are introducing new techniques to increase its effectiveness,” says Dawson.
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NBN shifts positive cash flow predictions out to 2023
Extra AU$200 million of capital expenditure in 2022 sinks plan to be cash flow positive in 2022.
Despite insisting in recent times that it would be cash flow positive in the 2022 fiscal year, the National Broadband Network (NBN) has revealed it will miss that time frame.
Announcing its corporate plan on Friday, NBN revealed it would not be cash flow positive until a year later 2023.
This change is due to the company increasing its expected capital expenditure from AU$1.2 billion in 2022 to AU$1.4 billion, thereby sinking its tiny AU$100 million cash flow for 2022 predicted last year.
Instead, NBN said it would be cash flow positive from 2023 with AU$700 million being the first cash flow positive total.
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5G threat looms as NBN slashes activation target
Aug 30, 2019 — 4.56pm
NBN Co has slashed the number of customers it expects to sign up to the broadband network next year in response to weaker-than-expected demand, fuelling concerns its business model is more vulnerable than it admits to the rise of 5G.
In its latest corporate plan, NBN Co revealed it had cut its projected activation rates – the rate at which households opt to switch from ADSL to fibre broadband – by half a million households.
The news prompted Telstra to announce to the market it would review its own guidance as a result of the announcement. In the majority of cases Telstra, which owns the legacy copper network, loses a wholesale customer when a household switches to the NBN.
Last year, NBN Co forecast that by 2020, 7.5 million premises would have switched from ADSL to the NBN. But in its latest report, released on Friday, it slashed that figure to 7 million.
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NBN Co puts future residential ARPU at $49 a user
Removes business contribution to the number.
NBN Co is now projecting its average revenue per user (ARPU) for residential customers will be $49 by FY23.
The new number, revealed in today’s corporate plan, is the result of NBN Co splitting its revenue forecasts by business and residential users for the first time.
Until now, NBN Co has presented a “blended ARPU” - essentially the average revenue it expected to see from all users on its network.
Now, the company will release only a residential ARPU number.
In the last corporate plan, as it had done previously, NBN Co said its blended ARPU was “expected to grow from $44 to $51 in FY22”.
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NBN flags new delay as fibre costs rise
NBN Co has cut its forecast of premises connected to the network by end of financial year 2020, with 500,000 homes now set to wait longer to get broadband services over the $53 billion network.
According to NBN Co’s corporate plan for 2020-23, the total number of homes with active NBN connection by June 30 2020 is now expected to be 7 million, rather than the 7.5 million forecast earlier.
“This is purely a timing issue around deployment and activations, with the ‘Ready to Connect’ footprint coming later during FY20 than originally forecast in the previous year’s plan,” NBN Co said on Friday.
Despite the revision, NBN Co insists it’s on track to meet its financial targets.
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Wednesday, 28 August 2019 16:12
Knowing their NBN speed brings satisfaction to consumers
Consumers who know what their NBN plan’s ‘typical evening speed’ should are more satisfied with their provider (78%) than those who do not know (68.1%) according to a new research report.
Analysis of the consumer NBN market by Roy Morgan Research shows that 49.9% of consumers don’t know “What typical evening speed is included in your NBN plan?”
The typical evening speed is the top speed your NBN plan is capable of achieving in peak hour internet traffic and is offered in four tiers - basic, standard, standard plus and premium.
Interestingly this lack of knowledge about speed is not simply because someone may not be the primary or joint fixed broadband decision maker, Roy Morgan says.
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Thursday, 29 August 2019 02:56
Labor’s Rowland raises concerns about Australia’s lowly ranking on broadband affordability
The Australian Labor Party’s Shadow Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland has expressed concern that Australia has ranked last out of 36 OECD countries on entry level fixed-broadband affordability.
Referring to concerns about a Point Topic data second quarter 2019 report compiled by the Parliamentary Library, Rowland said this concerning development follows “scathing assessments” by Infrastructure Australia and the ACCC Chairman about the multi-technology mix and its entry level pricing.
Rowland says that in August an Infrastructure Australia audit observed that “the technology mix for the NBN has diversified, meaning different users will receive different types of connections. This change will deliver varied outcomes for users, and some may shoulder higher costs or receive lower-quality services.”
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NBN has destroyed huge value with tech changes: Quigley
Aug 27, 2019 — 12.00am
The man originally charged with creating the national broadband network has warned recent positive financial results announcements from NBN Co are masking billions of dollars of value destroyed by misguided technology choices, which risks leaving taxpayers with huge ongoing expenses, substandard internet and a network that can't be sold.
NBN Co's founding chief executive officer Mike Quigley spoke to The Australian Financial Review ahead of the release of an updated NBN corporate plan at the end of this week, saying all eyes should be on future revenue estimates to see if the network can start paying for itself without more government funding.
Earlier this month NBN posted full year results, described by its current CEO Stephen Rue as "incredibly strong", with revenue beating projections in the last corporate plan by $200 million, and raising monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) by $2 to $46.
However, Mr Quigley warned that the technology choices made in deploying the NBN meant longer term revenue and particularly maintenance and upgrade costs were major unanswered questions for NBN, after the end of the rollout in 2020.
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Enjoy!
David.
5 comments:
$11.7 million investment to keep Australians out of hospital !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read the media release and ask yourself 'so what' is each project really hoping to achieve. Then see if you can identify the '5 magic words' which landed the grant for each project.
5 words to use in every grant application .... keep Australians out of hospital.
Wonder why they are funding ”keep Australians out of hospital”. Seems through policy, funding and general incompetence Australians are prevented from accessing hospitals already.
Just think how many projects - and lives saved - $2billion would have delivered.
There's something wrong with political decision making in the Federal government.
The Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) is something to keep an eye on. A noble endeavour but awash with cash looking for a home. How much will end up where it should? And how much will go into the trough to feed the ....
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