This appeared a day or so ago.
ADHA commits to measuring, reporting MHR effectiveness
Now the dust has settled on the federal election, everyone seems to be getting used to a government they didn’t think they’d have – unfortunately, a government no policy agenda on mostly everything, including health.
A quick trip to the Australian Digital Health Agency to check on what’s next suggests there might be a few people still getting their heads around the idea that there won’t be any major changes taking place now they are staying with their old overseers. So it’s back to the wheel and the job of proving to the professional digital health world that the My Health Record actually is a good idea, and that our interoperability quagmire is finally close to being sorted.
In providing The Medical Republic with their near term agenda, ADHA CEO Tim Kelsey said that with more than 11 million MHRs being activated in the last year (that is, by either a patient, a clinician, or both), there was some clear evidence that the record is in play and getting used.
But with the hard work of “opt out” behind them, the next big job, he said, was developing a set of clear and measurable KPIs which could track the success of the MHR. With that, presumably, the agency can talk down some of the naysayers.
“Anecdotally, we are seeing significant changes in clinical behaviour already being created by the availability of the MHR,” Mr Kelsey said. He cited the example of how doctors in the emergency department of Royal Perth Hospital had changed a swathe of procedures to incorporate the utility of the MHR.
“It’s important now that we establish measures of meaningful use, and track them, so we can demonstrate to others how the MHR is working,” he told The Medical Republic.
He said that there was currently an internal working group looking at what those measures should be, and how they could be tracked and published.
Pressed on what some such measures were likely to be, Mr Kelsey said “the obvious things”, such as the avoidance of medication misadventure, over-ordering of pathology, and reduced administrative burdens. He said that the team was working on just how these things could be measured without incurring an additional reporting burden on users.
Mr Kelsey said that on top of more than 11 million MHR records being activated out of a potential total of more than 23 million, significant progress was occurring on the quality and amount of information in each record. As well as comprehensive and organised medications information, records were now being populated with public and private pathology reporting. The private side of reporting, which has until now been virtually non existent, would be ramping up all year, he said.
As ever, there is a lot of enthusiasm and optimism from the ADHA team on progress, but as the agency itself points out, there isn’t a lot of hard and fast data yet.
So a commitment to a set of KPIs on effectiveness, and a publicly available dashboard in the near future, is a big deal Presumably, if the reporting is serious and accurate, we should have a good idea of how effective the MHR is, or can be, within a year. At that point, presumably, the MHR will either be exposed as being not such a good idea after all, or a lot of critics and naysayers will need to swallow their pride and start getting on board.
Lots more here:
These statements need to be compared with this:
ADHA Board
Agenda Item 19
My Health Record performance statistics
Meeting: 6 December 2018
Official
RECOMMENDATION
That the Board note the current participation and use of the My Health Record by consumers and healthcare providers and the status of the Healthcare Identifiers Service, the National Authentication Service for Health and the National Clinical Terminology Service (provided at Attachment A to the paper).
PURPOSE
The Participation and Use Dashboard provides the Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) Board with a range of metrics which demonstrate current use of, and participation in the My Health Record (MHR) system up to 28 October 2018. The National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) and Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Dashboards provide statuses of these services between August 2018 and September 2018. The National Clinical Terminology Service (NCTS) Dashboard provides a status between August and
October 2018.
October 2018.
BACKGROUND
The layout and appearance of the Dashboard has remained unchanged since the August 2018 meeting.
SUMMARY OF ISSUES
As at 28 October 2018, there were 6.26 million Australians with a MHR which represents approximately 25 per cent of Australia’s total population.
Consumer Participation (Pages 1 to 4 inclusive of Attachment A)
In the 12 months to 28 October 2018, a total of 962,897 consumers were registered for a record, at an average of over 18,500 per week. Generally, the majority of consumers have been registered by healthcare provider organisations. However, since July 2018, more consumers have chosen to register themselves (Chart 3).
Chart 5 shows that in the last 12 months, there has been a 47 per cent increase in the number of consumers who have had their record viewed by two or more healthcare provider organisations.
The remaining consumer usage charts reflect a notable increase in July 2018, coinciding with the start of the opt out period.
Healthcare Provider Organisation Participation (Pages 5 to 10 inclusive of Attachment A)
There continues to be a steady increase in the number of healthcare provider organisations registered for the MHR with a noticeable increase in pharmacies registered since March 2018 (Chart 14). In the last
12 months, the greatest proportion of registrants have been general practice organisations and pharmacies.
12 months, the greatest proportion of registrants have been general practice organisations and pharmacies.
Clinical document uploads (Charts 17 and 18) continue to increase with dispense reports showing the greatest rate of increase over the last 12 months.
General Practice (GP) organisations
GP organisation use of the MHR continues to be influenced by the timing of ePIP quarters. Over the last
12 months, the number of documents viewed by GPs has increased (Chart 22).
12 months, the number of documents viewed by GPs has increased (Chart 22).
Hospitals
Both public and private hospitals have demonstrated a clear increase in their use of the MHR in the last
12 months. Not only has the number of documents being uploaded steadily increased, but the total number of hospitals uploading and the total number of views has increased.
12 months. Not only has the number of documents being uploaded steadily increased, but the total number of hospitals uploading and the total number of views has increased.
Pharmacies
Overall, as with hospitals, pharmacies have increased their use of the system in the last 12 months. There has been a large increase in pharmacy registrations (Chart 14), and this correlates with a significant increase in the number of pharmacies uploading documents (Chart 29), and also the number of documents being uploaded and viewed (Charts 27 and 30).
----- End extract:
You can see the material here:
So we see the ADHA has 30 charts of usage and adoption data that has been provided to the Board which clearly covers a lot of what one might to know – but that Board Paper attachment is no where to be found for the system owners – the public! They. the ADHA, know exactly what is going on but are simply not letting the public know - for obvious reasons. The system is near useless!
Mr Kelsey and his mates are an information ‘black hole’ and they know it. Sad that! Hell will freeze over before they actually reveal just how little the #myHR is actually used to make a clinical difference!
David.
2 comments:
The Department of Health provides much more granular/accurate (i.e. not obfuscated by rounding) data than ADHA via this page:
https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/PHN-Digital_Health
But even they only go up to May.
This all rather reinforces David's view that there is no good news. If there were, even just a little, ADHA would be spinning it and shouting it over the rooftops instead of twittering on about the training courses the PHNs are having to run because it is not intuitive and doesn't well intgrate into existing systems.
Both ADHA and the department have the ability to produce detailed data, but only uploads, there has never been anything on meaningful (i.e useful, clinically) downloads.
Or on the additional costs to health providers of feeding this white elephant.
A rough estimate of the cost to governments would be interesting - ADHA/ePIP/PHNs plus the Department's/COAG's oversight costs would be informative.
"Anecdotally, we are seeing significant changes in clinical behaviour already being created by the availability of the MHR," Mr Kelsey said. He cited the example of how doctors in the emergency department of Royal Perth Hospital had changed a swathe of procedures to incorporate the utility of the MHR.
No improved health outcomes, just changes in behaviour - more work, more distractions, less patient time.
I think it's called weasel words.
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