This popped up a few days ago.
ADHA COO defends My Health Record transparency
Bettina McMahon says people have not had this level of transparency before
The Australian Government’s My Health Record offers a level of transparency that people did not have before on health information and data.
That is according to the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) chief operating officer Bettina McMahon who spoke at this year’s Gartner IT Symposium about her own experience using the system.
McMahon said that one of the settings allows a user to get a text message every time someone is checking their files, so while at a GP’s consultation, for example, she gets warnings of her records being checked or updated.
Answering a question about how the agency responds to citizen pressures to get an improved customer and patient experience, she said that this is the sort of transparency people have not had before. She said that this is one step and “we're going to end up going much further” as the government explores boundaries, constraints and consumer expectations which change over time.
McMahon said that when working with major digital transformations across government, there will be a public debate and that is a healthy thing.
Lots more here:
Somehow Ms McMahon seems to equate sending you a text when someone accesses your private health information with transparency when we know hardly anyone has even switched on the functionality as it is so tricky to find and that virtually no-one has placed access restrictions on their record because they either don’t know how or, having seen the content, could not care less. Surely real transparency consists of public information being available on all operational and usage aspects of the #myHealthRecord?
We don’t know exactly who has what controls in place (statistically speaking) because the figures are not made public – now that might be transparency for you.
As pointed out in a recent blog – and checked yesterday – no stats have been updated since before June 30, 2019 and clinical usage statistics have never been disclosed as far as I know.
Here is the link:
To me the information suppression / repression is part of an overall move by Government to take secrecy to a whole new level. We a seeing less and less disclosure via Freedom of Information and commercial-in-confidence / classification is increasingly being applied to the most innocuous information while all the time the Government wants more powers to mine virtually all our data all the time.
The state of mind we see from the ADHA is just a microcosm of a larger and much more worrying trend in my view.
Talking of the just the #myHealthRecord no-one outside Government knows how much the system is used, what good it is doing and who and what are benefiting from it.
For something that has cost north of $2B to set up and millions a year to operate surely a little real transparency would not go astray?
David.
7 comments:
Could she be attempting to soften the impact of the ANAO report? Looking for sympathy votes? Or simply filling the career quota of public speeches?
or just out of her depth....
Has some characteristics of the tactic “discounting straw people”
For a long time I could not understand what ADHA/NEHTA were up to, and it almost seemed like a conspiracy to feed multi-national IT/Consulting companies and I guess I am not discounting that totally, but my overriding view now is that they are just clueless and totally out of their depth. Its the Peter principle at work. Unfortunately its spilt over into the health IT sector generally, You are much happier and more successful if you are oblivious to the technical realities and just go and watch powerpoint presentations and nod your head in agreement. Anyone with insight just gets angry at the BS and moves on to a real engineering domain.
Andrew has precisely nailed the essence of the problem. The 'elements' are ubiquitous, building cumulatively over the last two decades, leading to multiple failed IT projects.
however, the Department of Health is very good at hiding data that doesn't suit them. Apart from the lack of My Health Record statistics they keep quiet about other things as well.
Hospital complications data hidden from the public
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hospital-complications-data-hidden-from-the-public-20191103-p536zy.html
Australia's healthcare safety watchdog says "an unacceptable proportion" of hospital admissions are associated with an "adverse event" such as a botched surgery or medication mishap, yet the public is not told where they occur.
In the worst cases, called "sentinel events", patients die or suffer a permanent disability, often due to an error on the part of treating doctors and nurses - such as operating on the wrong person or body part, leaving a surgical instrument behind or transfusing with the wrong blood type.
...
"It is about transparency," Dr Duckett said.
...
"We've got to have this information in the public domain, partly to shame organisations into doing things and partly for some people who might be interested in the comparison [between hospitals]."
...
Mr Hunt's spokesman said hospital-level data "is owned by and is the responsibility of the states" and that it was "entirely within their province as to whether they choose to release such information".
Well he would say that, wouldn't he.
@ 10:42 PM It's a Catch 22 dilemma Andrew. To succeed one needs to avoid getting involved with the Government bureaucrats and focus on building the business free of interference from them. The Catch 22 is that because they have most of the money they can suck you into their vortex of confused incompetence and in the process screw everyone's business; so the big survive whilst the small go broke!!
Post a Comment