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This weekly blog is to explore the larger issues around Digital Health, data security, data privacy, AI / ML. technology and related matters.
I will also try to highlight ADHA Propaganda when I come upon it.
Just so we keep count, the latest Notes from the ADHA Board are dated 6 December, 2018! Secrecy unconstrained! This is really the behaviour of a federal public agency gone rogue – and it just goes on! When you read this it will be well over 12 months of radio silence, and better still the CEO, COO and the Chief of Staff have also gone. I wonder will things improve now?
Note: Appearance here is not to suggest I see any credibility or value in what follows. I will leave it to the reader to decide what is worthwhile and what is not! The point is to let people know what is being said / published that I have come upon.
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Facebook ‘morally bankrupt’ on protecting kids: Peter Dutton
Facebook’s claim that one of its top priorities is keeping people safe is an insult and “spin”, Peter Dutton says, as the tech giant moves ahead with plans to encrypt all of its messaging services.
Australia, the US and Britain have urged Facebook not to proceed with end-to-end encryption across WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger without allowing “lawful access” to the content.
After Facebook rejected the request, the Home Affairs Minister said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was “morally bankrupt on the issue of encryption and protecting children”.
“These companies have the ability to shift the dial, but instead behave like the tobacco companies of the 1960s,” Mr Dutton said. “They know with certainty their actions are causing harm and they pretend it isn’t happening
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Can Apple do more to transform the health industry?
Apple CEO Tim Cook often says his company’s greatest contribution to humankind “will be in the health area.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook frequently makes the claim that his company’s greatest contribution to humankind “will be in the health area.”
And it's taking a number of steps to make that effort a reality.
When will becomes when
Cook likes to point to the ECG function in Apple Watch, the company’s health-related research tools and its software based solutions. (The latter include things like the Health app, Activity Monitor, Cycle Tracking, medical apps and advanced sensor designs.)
All these tools are useful, but are they really a great contribution to humanity when such a small percentage of the people on the planet can access them?
Apple’s business tends to be built around its core skill at inventing products around advanced technology, which it can market to its key audience of premium consumers.
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The apps that keep a diary of your life, second by second
New 'self-reflection' services can help users gain a sense of satisfaction and achievement – or be a toxic task master.
Life Cycle uses location data, the information you log, and your digital habits to track how you spend your time, all day, every day.
Sarah Manavis
Nov 30, 2019 — 12.15am
Over dinner a couple of weeks ago, a friend was telling the table of her dating woes. “I have been spending so much less time around men,” she told us, “I can literally show you how much less time I’m spending with men.” She proceeded to whip open an app to demonstrate the difference between the amount of time she had spent on romance in the last month since her break up and the month before. It had all been handily logged and turned into a pie chart on her phone, ready to be accessed at any given moment.
My friend is an avid user of Life Cycle, an app that uses a combination of your geo-location data, the information you physically log, and your digital habits to track how you spend every second of your time. From work to sleep to dating to even time spent queueing, the app gives you an automated pie chart that can compare your habits day-on-day, month-on-month, and year-on-year.
But while this may seem niche, Life Cycle is just one of the hundreds of newly popular services giving users the ability to self-reflect on the minutiae of their lives – and optimise their lives around the results.
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Tech's brave new world coming on a global scale
A regulatory inquiry in Australia played a major role in bringing Facebook to a point where it knew the tide had turned against it.
Dec 13, 2019 — 11.34am
"I do have one question ... what took you so long?”
It was an awkward introduction to one of the biggest shifts in Facebook’s attitude towards journalism and the media industry.
But one could hardly be surprised. News Corp global chief executive Robert Thomson had taken the stage with the social media giant’s founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in October to announce a new initiative for Facebook to pay for news.
Thomson, a quirky but hard-nosed Australian journalist who rose to the top of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, has been one of the loudest global voices calling for action on "big tech". And despite his target finally relenting, as Zuckerberg did that day, he was ready to stir the pot further.
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National Electronic Health Record Systems and Consent to Processing of Health Data in the European Union and Australia
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1. 1.Deakin Law School Deakin UniversityMelbourneAustralia
First Online: 13 December 2019
Abstract
This study focuses on the single most important regulatory aspect of data processing, namely consent to data processing. It compares approaches to consent under the General Data Protection Regulation (EU 2016/679) of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data (and on the free movement of such) (GDPR) in the context of European Union (EU) national electronic health record (NEHR) schemes (also referred to as “national digital health networks”) with the approach of the Australian national health record scheme called My Health Record (MHR). The GDPR, subject to derogation in limited circumstances, is binding on all 27 EU member countries. Under Articles 168 (2) and (7) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2007), while the EU has a duty to “encourage cooperation between the Member States…to improve the complementarity of their health services in cross-border areas,” the European Union Member States retain the power to manage their own health services. However, in doing so, subject to narrow derogations, the management of their NEHR systems must conform to the GDPR. The GDPR governs the processing of data in any form including data contained in national electronic health systems (European Commission Recommendation on a European Electronic Health Record exchange format (C(2019)800) of 6 February 2019. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/recommendation-european-electronic-health-record-exchange-format. Accessed 13 May 2019). Given that, unlike the Australian MHR scheme, national electronic medical/health records systems of EU Member States are at different stages of development, and that derogations enable a measure of variance in compliance, individual European systems will not be discussed. Australia is a non-EU jurisdiction, and does not have the European Commission’s certificate of adequate level of data protection (GDPR Article 45 empowers the European Commission to determine whether a country outside the EU offers an adequate level of data protection, whether by its domestic legislation or of the international commitments it has entered into. For further discussion, see below). One of the reasons for the absence of certification might be the effectively non-consensual nature of the My Health Record system that administers, collects, stores, and provides access to health and clinical data of Australians.
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02 Dec 2019
EMR – Friend Or Foe?
By Dr Bernadette Wilks, Co-Chair, Ama Council Of Doctors In Training
By now, most have been exposed to the electronic medical record (EMR), also known by a number of related terms such as electronic health record (EHR) and electronic patient records (EPR). I have presented twice within a fortnight on the topic of EMR, with a focus upon the EMR’s impact upon medical education and training. However, like all things in medicine; this impact is not limited to teaching and training but extends across all industry domains; from morbidity and mortality, hospital productivity, ethics, privacy and confidentiality, patient satisfaction, physician well-being and team dynamics.
Feedback from both presentations illustrated high levels of frustration and fatigue associated with EMR implementation and use; and minimal awareness about EMR’s multidomain impact. The consensus from both presentations was that EMR discourse must remain front and centre during these tenuous years of implementation and complete integration into our healthcare system.
EMR was first propositioned as a legitimate replacement of paper records in the early 1980s and by 2004 the need to convert medical records from paper to screen became a priority. Despite the passage of years, EMR is still in a nascent form; hampered by financial, time-related and technical factors; as demonstrated by two systematic reviews in Canada, one in 2009 and a follow-up in 2014.
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Why are doctors servants to EHRs rather than masters?
December 13, 2019 Dr Bryan Vartabedian
We’ve got the whole EHR dilemma ass up according to US physician and tech blogger Dr Bryan Vartabedian
The American Medical Association asks if we can create doctors better equipped to deal with the EHR. The question lit up Twitter and its growing numbers of health professionals.
But this is the wrong question.
Framing the question becomes important when you consider how we have related to our tools as a profession. Technology has traditionally served to extend the hand of the physician – It was the instrument. And through the years technology has been the thing that defined our autonomy and shaped us as health professionals.
But the story of the electronic health record (EHR) in modern medicine can be summed up by the motto of the 1933 World’s Fair: Science Finds — Industry Applies — Man Conforms. We could say that the physician has become the tool of the EHR rather than the other way around. Given this inversion the AMA’s question seems almost reasonable.
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Friday, 13 December 2019 11:10
Dutton slams 'morally bankrupt' Zuckerberg, Cook over encryption
Peter Dutton: "How can we accept Zuckerberg’s and Cook’s argument that the privacy of criminals is more important than the safety of our children?" Courtesy YouTube
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has slammed the chief executives of Facebook and Apple, Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook respectively, accusing them of being "morally bankrupt on the issue of encryption and protecting children".
In a speech on Thursday to a global summit to tackle child sexual exploitation being held in Addis Ababa, Dutton said Zuckerberg, Cook and other CEOs would not put up with bullying, sexual harassment or exploitation in their workplaces.
"But at the same time they tolerate the use of their platforms for the sexual exploitation of children, predominately young girls; many of whom will be physically and mentally scarred – in many cases for life – particularly when the image is shared and shared and shared again," he added.
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Digital inquiry: experts want Privacy Act changes to be fast-tracked
Privacy experts are calling on the government to fast-track changes to the Privacy Act, after the Morrison government said it would introduce legislation next year to force the tech giants to be more transparent with how they handle our data.
As part of its response to the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry, the government on Thursday confirmed it would review the Privacy Act to consider whether broader reform was needed to give users more control over their data.
The government also confirmed it would introduce higher penalties for privacy breaches and legislation to parliament next year for a mandatory “privacy code’’ for companies to be more transparent about data sharing.
To some, however, it's not enough. Lauren Solomon, the boss of the Consumer Policy Research Centre, said Australia had already reached the “privacy tipping point” and the government's review of the Privacy Act needed to be fast-tracked.
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Government to evaluate 'right to be forgotten' but privacy reforms still years away
By Tim Biggs
December 12, 2019 — 4.25pm
The federal government will conduct a review of the Privacy Act as part of a package of new reforms aimed at regulating the behaviour of social media platforms and other tech giants.
But consumers will likely not feel the full effects - including a potential right to have their personal information erased - for years.
The ACCC will create a code of conduct says Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
On Thursday the government accepted or noted all suggestions related to privacy and personal data made by the competition regulator in its inquiry into the digital platforms.
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Researchers criticise AI software that predicts emotions
By Joseph Menn and Jeffrey Dastin on Dec 13, 2019 12:00PM
No justification for use, NYU researchers say.
A prominent group of researchers alarmed by the harmful social effects of artificial intelligence called Thursday for a ban on automated analysis of facial expressions in hiring and other major decisions.
The AI Now Institute at New York University said action against such software-driven "affect recognition" was its top priority because science doesn't justify the technology's use and there is still time to stop widespread adoption.
The group of professors and other researchers cited as a problematic example the company HireVue, which sells systems for remote video interviews for employers such as Hilton and Unilever. It offers AI to analyse facial movements, tone of voice and speech patterns, and doesn't disclose scores to the job candidates.
The nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a complaint about HireVue to the US Federal Trade Commission, and AI Now has criticised the company before.
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Canberra puts Facebook, Google 'on notice'
Dec 13, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia will become the first country to force tech giants Facebook and Google to negotiate with media companies over the sharing of revenue, data and algorithm changes, in a bid to protect public interest journalism and local programming.
Media bosses are split on whether the government was being too soft by giving the tech giants 11 months to broker a voluntary deal with media companies before threatening legislation.
But Australian Competition and Consumer Commission boss Rod Sims, who will oversee the negotiations, favoured a voluntary approach and said the government's response, announced on Thursday, was in line with his report and 19-month investigation.
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Thursday, 12 December 2019 13:15
Government response to Digital Platforms Inquiry gets thumbs up from ACCC
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has welcomed the Federal Government’s commitment to the adoption of key recommendations from its Digital Platforms Inquiry, saying they address its main competition and consumer priorities, including concerns about privacy and the use of data.
The ACCC says it will continue its work in digital platform markets through the establishment of a permanent Digital Platforms Branch, which will enable “continuous and consistent scrutiny of digital platforms, and current and future consumer and competition law enforcement cases”.
In addition, the ACCC says it will start a new inquiry into the digital advertising tech supply chain, focusing on digital display ads.
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Thursday, 12 December 2019 23:29
Government condemned for ‘disgraceful attack’ on free speech over digital platforms inquiry
The Australian Government has come under fire from the Institute of Public Affairs over its response to the digital platforms inquiry, with the institute condemning the Government for a “disgraceful attack” on free speech.
The Government’s response has also drawn comment from other key players, both within and outside the telecommunications industry, with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) and industry lobby groups Communications Alliance (CA) and Digital Industry Group (DIGI), a lobby group that represents Google, Facebook and Twitter among others, generally welcoming it - with some qualification.
But it was the Institute of Public Affairs which took aim at the Government, expressing both strong criticism and concern.
"That the same Coalition who rightly thought in 2013 that having a public interest media advocate run the ruler over the media was an attack on free speech, now believes Canberra bureaucrats should decide what is and isn't fake news represents a fundamental failure of liberal democratic principles within the Coalition," said Gideon Rozner, Director of Policy at the IPA.
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A MyHealth Record message for anaesthetists
AUSTRALIAN DIGITAL HEALTH AGENCY ADHA Propaganda
In February, a My Health Record (MHR) was created for every Australian who chose not to opt out of the system. The Australian Digital Health Agency’s rollout of MHR to healthcare providers was initially focussed on GPs, pharmacists, pathologists and diagnostic imaging services.
The Agency is now looking to engage more specialists – including anaesthetists.
What does this mean for anaesthetists?
MHR is a secure, online health summary where clinicians involved in a patient’s care can access their health information. Information available may include a patient’s medical history, medicines view (incorporating prescription and dispense records), allergies, adverse drug reactions, immunisations, hospital discharge summaries, pathology results, diagnostic imaging reports, event summaries, advance care plan and custodian information.
It is an additional source of information to support clinical decision making — and does not replace other important information such as the medical records held in a clinical information system, or essential clinical conversations with a patient and other healthcare providers.
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Australia tells Facebook and Google to commit to competition rules, or else
By Colin Packham on Dec 13, 2019 6:55AM
New rules to ensure they do not abuse their market power and damage competition.
Australia said on Thursday technology giants such as Facebook Inc and Google will have to agree to new rules to ensure they do not abuse their market power and damage competition, or the government will impose new controls on them.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) will create a code of conduct to address complaints that the technology companies have a stronghold on advertising, the main income generator of local media operators.
The guidelines will ensure substantial market power is not used to lessen competition in media and advertising services markets.
"I want us to be the model jurisdiction in the world for how we are dealing with digital platforms, social media platforms," Morrison told reporters in Melbourne.
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AMA position paper calls for innovation in aged care
Innovation and enhanced technology must be included in all current and future aged care planning to reduce costs, increase efficiency and enhance quality of care, the AMA says in a position statement released this week.
Australia must actively seek evidence-based innovative ways to sustainably provide high quality care in the face of an ageing population with complex care needs.
Australian Medical Association President Dr Tony Bartone says the interim report of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has highlighted deficiencies in the sector and uncovered an aged care system plagued by “rigid conformity and an absence of innovation”.
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Patient Safety Improvement with a National Health Record
by Laura Herlands on December 11th, 2019
Patient Safety is the result of practices and policies that healthcare organizations employ to protect patients from preventable harm. A National Health Record would help mitigate some main contributors to patient safety issues, such as medication errors, timely reporting of critical health events and data availability for care teams.
Medication Errors
According to Agency for Healthcare Research (AHRQ) and Quality’s Patient Safety Network (PSNET), “In a review of EHR safety and usability, investigators found that the switch from paper records to EHRs led to decreases in medication errors, improved guideline adherence, and (after initial implementation) enhanced safety attitudes and job satisfaction among physicians.”
In addition to the obvious benefit of having all information in one place, I am certain patients, especially the most vulnerable ones, would benefit greatly through reduction in medication errors. A standard Drug Utilization Review (DUR) could expand to every medication the patient is on instead of only the ones in the providers Electronic Health Record (EHR). The DUR looks at drug-to-drug contraindications, drug-to-disease or allergy complications, duplicative treatment, high or low dosage, as well as factoring in drug-age, drug-gender and drug-pregnancy precautions. If medical providers and pharmacists had a comprehensive list of medications prescribed to the patient, the value of the DUR would be exponentially greater than relying on the local EHR. All of this would contribute to improved treatment and reduced complication caused by the current localized electronic collection of data.
Note: This is pretty sad comment on EHRs thinking the #myHR is a success!
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Government reveals censorship overhaul, stiff privacy penalties for Digital Platforms
By Julian Bajkowski on Dec 12, 2019 1:31PM
eSafety Commissioner granted new plug-pulling and search de-listing powers.
A radical overhaul of Australia’s analogue era censorship and classification laws alongside reforms to the Privacy Act to “capture technical data and other online identifiers” under the umbrella of “personal information” have emerged as key themes from the government’s highly anticipated response to the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry.
In dual policy drops on Wednesday and Thursday, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher confirmed Australia’s arcane system of reviewers sitting in a dark room stamping classification labels onto content before it can be pulled offline are numbered.
Instead, a heavily boosted eSafety Commissioner will be handed much of the job for faster response times, and a decent sized stick to whack recidivists with.
The moves are a significant loss for the US social media lobby and, if enforced, could see them regularly fronting court.
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11 December 2019
And then there were none: ADHA loses all three amigos
Losing your long-term and effective chief operating officer might be regarded as misfortune. But losing your CEO, COO and chief of staff within a matter of weeks, with no visible lines of succession? Oscar Wilde wouldn’t be happy.
Mercurial CEO of the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA), Tim Kelsey, announced on Monday that he was leaving within a month, not long after we learned that the agency’s hard working and long serving COO, Bettina McMahon, was also leaving in January. Both moves are within spitting distance of the recent departure of the Agency’s chief of staff (and political wrangler), Mark Kinsela, to take up the role of CEO of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.
The media release announcing Kelsey’s departure was unexpected, short, and distinctly lacking in any of the normal niceties signalling the moving on a three year CEO. It doesn’t read like the board of the ADHA are all that happy (see below).
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AI-driven personalization in digital media: political and societal implications
2 Dec 2019
This paper seeks to outline the implications of the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), and more specifically of machine learning (ML), by the old ‘gatekeepers’ – the legacy media – as well as by the new, algorithmic, media – the digital intermediaries – focusing on personalization. Data-driven personalization, despite demonstrating commercial benefits for the companies that deploy it, as well as a purported convenience for consumers, can have individual and societal implications that convenience simply cannot counterbalance. Nor are citizens necessarily complacent with regard to targeting, as has been suggested. According to an interim report on online targeting released by the UK’s Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), ‘people’s attitudes towards targeting change when they understand more of how it works and how pervasive it is’.
Key points:
- Machine learning (ML)-driven personalization is fast expanding from social media to the wider information space, encompassing legacy media, multinational conglomerates and digital-native publishers: however, this is happening within a regulatory and oversight vacuum that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
- Mass-scale adoption of personalization in communication has serious implications for human rights, societal resilience and political security. Data protection, privacy and wrongful discrimination, as well as freedom of opinion and of expression, are some of the areas impacted by this technological transformation.
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and its ML subset are novel technologies that demand novel ways of approaching oversight, monitoring and analysis. Policymakers, regulators, media professionals and engineers need to be able to conceptualize issues in an interdisciplinary way that is appropriate for sociotechnical systems.
- Funding needs to be allocated to research into human–computer interaction in information environments, data infrastructure, technology market trends, and the broader impact of ML systems within the communication sector.
- Although global, high-level ethical frameworks for AI are welcome, they are no substitute for domain- and context-specific codes of ethics. Legacy media and digital-native publishers need to overhaul their editorial codes to make them fit for purpose in a digital ecosystem transformed by ML. Journalistic principles need to be reformulated and refined in the current informational context in order to efficiently inform the ML models built for personalized communication.
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Here comes the data analytics wave
Leading chief executives see lots of disruption in the next decade and say the best response is increased investment in data analytics, cloud computing and AI.
Dec 12, 2019 — 12.00am
When Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella was in Sydney last month he spent considerable time talking about technology with Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci.
So it was no surprise that Banducci's responses to the Chanticleer CEO survey were informed by his close relationship with the company supplying Woolies with a range of services including cloud computing, data analytics and data encryption.
When asked about the most disruptive forces of the past decade, Banducci said it was the ever rising customer expectations around convenience and the ability of digital and data to assist in meeting this need.
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Wednesday, 11 December 2019 23:56
Proposed reforms will ‘strengthen’ online safety for Australians, says Government
Reform plans designed to strengthen the online safety of Australians are under consideration by the Federal Government, with the Government commencing public consultation on a proposed new Online Safety Act.
“Keeping Australians safe online is a top priority for the Morrison Government. The Internet offers significant economic and social benefits, but these benefits will only be fully realised if Australians can engage confidently and safely in the online world,” said Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, Paul Fletcher.
“Australia has been at the forefront of online safety policy over the past two decades and the proposed reforms address the risk of evolving harms and build on our strong foundations.”
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Google reveals what we searched for this year, and ‘fires near me’ tops the list
Jack Gramenz, news.com.au
December 11, 2019 10:34am
Whether or not we were in imminent danger from a raging out-of-control bushfire was the number one concern for Australians in 2019, according to data from Google showing our search behaviour.
“Fires near me” was the number one trending search on Google, followed by the rugby and cricket world cups, federal election results, and Cameron Boyce (an American actor who died from an epileptic seizure aged 20 in July).
Thanos and the Avengers: Endgame movie the character appeared in came in at six and seven. Danny Frawley, the AFL legend who died in a car crash the day after his 56th birthday in September, came in at eighth.
Note – How to opt-out featured.
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Tech giants failing to meet expectations of online safety, says Paul Fletcher
Digital platforms are failing to meet community expectations about online safety and preventing harm, Communications Minister Paul Fletcher says.
Mr Fletcher will use a speech to the National Press Club on Wednesday to announce the immediate introduction of a national Online Safety Charter setting more stringent expectations on service providers, and start a 10-week consultation process for an online safety act.
He will criticise the sector for being resistant to change when it comes to bolstering online safety for millions of Australians, including children. “Some sectors of the internet industry have been slow to meet the community’s expectations when it comes to online safety,” he will say.
“Many of today’s most popular digital products and services have not been designed with user safety in mind.
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Microsoft tech expert warns of bias and sexism in artificial intelligence
By Cara Waters
December 10, 2019 — 12.59pm
A senior technology executive has warned the data used to build algorithms driving artificial intelligence can lead to bias and sexism.
Emily Rich, managing director of startups at Microsoft Australia, told the Startup Grind conference in Melbourne on Monday that a lack of diversity in the data used for artificial intelligence raised serious issues.
"Uber's self-driving cars were running red lights because they had misclassified data in the algorithms," she said. "Last year the UK home office put in a passport facial recognition system that could only detect white skin. So these are the kind of catastrophic things that happen, that are actually happening every day, and it's due to this data that is not diverse."
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Facebook refuses to compromise on privacy, firing back at Australia, US and UK
December 11, 2019 — 2.00am
Tech giant Facebook has accused the Australian, United States and British governments of demanding a fundamental weakening of the company's products that would be a "gift" to the world's criminals, hackers and dictators and endanger innocent people.
Executives from Facebook – which operates WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger – have declared they will not compromise the security of their messaging services for the sake of law enforcement, firing back at Western governments that recently demanded the company abandon plans to encrypt communications across its products.
In October, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, US Attorney-General William Barr, acting US Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan and British Home Secretary Priti Patel wrote to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, warning the company's plans would hamper investigations if there was no avenue for law enforcement agencies to gain access to user data.
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Connected Care: Leadership voices and thoughts at the HIMSS Australia Digital Health Summit
C-suite leaders in healthcare shared on the fundamentals, challenges and potential of connected care at the HIMSS Australia Digital Health Summit.
By Dean Koh ADHA and HIMSS Propaganda
December 10, 2019 04:24 AM
Connected Care has a range of meanings in healthcare – is it about care or health? Or is it referring to a longitudinal health record? What are the foundational pieces that sit under Connected Care? In the context of Australia, the starting point of Connected Care lies in the My Health Record, which is an online summary of one’s key health information.
At the CXO dialogue session of the HIMSS Australia Digital Health Summit, one of the challenges raised regarding connected care is the lack of an electronic discharge summary after patients are discharged from a hospital or care center. This often means that they are at a loss when it comes to the proper follow-ups. A salient point shared by a dialogue participant is that Connected Care is about the person who is being cared for, not just the health record or data. Ultimately, it is about the reality of the situation for the person.
With the consumerization of healthcare and the high penetration of mobile phone use especially for those under 35, there presents massive opportunities for a personalized engagement in Connected Care. This may in the form of health booking apps or messaging apps. A key question for healthcare providers/organizations to think about is to consider how consumer-patient expectations are changing, how they can understand their needs better and adapt to these changes.
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Unlawful metadata access is easy when we’re flogging a dead law
December 10, 2019 1.25pm AEDT
Authors
PhD Candidate, UNSW
Research Fellow, Lead of 'Technologies and Rule of Law' Stream, UNSW
After watching this year’s media raids and the prosecution of lawyers and whistleblowers, it’s not hard to see why Australians wonder about excessive police power and dwindling journalistic freedom.
But these problems are compounded by another, less known issue: police, and other bodies not even involved in law enforcement, have broad powers to access metadata. Each year, police alone access metadata in excess of 300,000 times.
Metadata has been described as an “activity log”: it’s the information that allows a communication to occur. Once, this would have been the address on the envelope. But modern telecommunications metadata consists of the time, date, duration, locations of a connection and more.
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Best-practice guides on safe use of My Health Record
10 December 2019
With nine out of 10 Australians now holding a My Health Record, NSW clinicians are being supported in how to use it safely and effectively.
A patient’s My Health Record potentially contains vital information from other healthcare providers such as GPs and community pharmacies, with peak bodies such as the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia saying it will lead to improved medicine safety.
eHealth NSW has been working with the Ministry of Health, the Agency for Clinical Innovation and clinicians from Local Health Districts and Specialty Health Networks to develop a best-practice guide for NSW Health clinicians.
In October, a draft HealtheNet and My Health Record Clinical Guide and Fact Sheet were circulated among NSW Health staff and medical defence organisations for consultation, which closed on 31 October.
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Where's the evidence My Health Record improves outcomes?
The Australian Digital Health Agency, and its departing CEO, Tim Kelsey, refused Australian Doctor's access to their studies
10th December 2019
The government agency running My Health Record is refusing to release five reports on whether the system is improving clinical care, saying interested parties will have to submit a Freedom of Information request to read them.
Questions about the future benefit of the multibillion-dollar system were addressed by the Australian National Audit Office, which last month said the system's implementation was on track to reduce duplication of tests and adverse drug events as well as saving doctors time on chasing up patient information.
However the difficulties in accessing robust evidence that it is making a significant difference to clinical care has fueled clinical disillusionment with a system that has now been running for seven years.
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OAIC annual report on digital health
The national privacy regulator has released a snapshot of its activity across the digital health sector in 2018–19, including the My Health Record system.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is the independent regulator of the privacy provisions under the My Health Records Act 2012 and the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010.
The Annual Report of the Australian Information Commissioner’s activities in relation to digital health 2018–19 shows an increase in privacy enquiries and complaints as the My Health Record system moved from a self-register model to an opt-out model in February 2019.
In 2018–19, the OAIC received 145 enquiries and 57 complaints about the My Health Record system, compared to 14 enquiries and 8 complaints the previous financial year. Most complaints were received before the end of the opt-out period on 31 January 2019.
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Analysis the key challenge of extreme data
Paul Appleby
It has been nearly two years since Angela Merkel dubbed data the “raw material of the 21st century”. Since then, data has been likened to oil, attributed to major advances in the fourth industrial revolution, and credited with generating billions of dollars throughout the global economy.
Regardless of industry or objective, every enterprise, institution and government organisation now claims their decision-making is data-driven. However, Centrelink’s robodebt saga and the recent royal commission into financial services say otherwise.
In this era of extreme data, enterprises face a serious challenge: how best to glean actionable insights from their data. Unfortunately, recent research from the Melbourne Business School found Australian companies are falling behind their global peers when it comes to using data analytics.
To add insult to injury, the same study found a direct correlation between analytics maturity and profitability. To stay competitive and successful, organisations need to address massive sets of complex data at speed, with the instant analysis required to drive the business forward.
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Australia’s reliance on China’s artificial intelligence knowledge
Australia relies heavily on China to help it harness the power of artificial intelligence, according to a new paper revealing a third of Australia’s AI publications are the result of collaborations with Chinese institutions.
The Australia-China Relations Institute paper found that in 2018, Australia produced 2.9 per cent of the world’s AI research publications, with about 31.8 per cent produced in partnership with Chinese institutions. Of the most highly cited Australian AI publications, more than 50 per cent were written in partnership with Chinese researchers.
The findings come amid growing fears that Chinese scientists could weaponise research undertaken with Australian counterparts on so-called “dual use” technologies such as AI and quantum computing.
The paper acknowledged AI could be used to build “autonomous weapons systems and mass surveillance apparatus, raising acute national security and ethical challenges”.
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NSW ambos win $275,000 class action payout after major data breach
By Gus McCubbing
December 10, 2019 — 10.50am
A $275,000 class action payout to NSW Ambulance workers will serve as a "lesson to all businesses" about private data breaches, their solicitor says.
In an Australian first, Justice Julie Ward on Monday accepted a settlement of a class action led by Tracy Evans against the NSW Ambulance Service over a major data breach.
Justice Ward said Ms Evans would receive three times as much as the average claimant in the class action, with 108 workers in total receiving payment.
"I think this is a fantastic result for 108 NSW ambulance workers who have had their workers' compensation files unlawfully accessed and extracts of it sold to at least one law firm," solicitor George Newhouse told reporters outside the Law Courts Building on Monday.
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[ BLOG ] : Artificial intelligence and precision healthcare
Peter Williams
Healthcare Innovator
Oracle APAC
Oracle APAC
Precision Medicine Community of Practice Steering Committee Member
The HISA Precision Medicine Community of Practice sees precision medicine as not constrained to developments associated with the advance of genomics, as important as they are, but rather considers a broader spectrum where the data driving individualised care can include clinical, social and environmental data factors.
To take account of that complexity a key capability required is artificial intelligence (AI), which has moved beyond the hype to implemented and proven solutions. It is being used to gain new insights from data and embedded in software to improve service quality and efficiency.
I presented at the recent HISA Health Data Analytics conference on the challenges arising from the rapid uptake of AI and the need to ensure that the AI is being put to best use to support clinical practice and drive innovation, and that adoption is being done in an ethical way. Similar themes were presented by several other speakers. AI was clearly the topic de jour!
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7 Key Digital, Privacy &Information Security Risks That You Need To Act On Now!
With heightened public and regulator scrutiny of the Property & Construction sectors, it’s more important than ever to ensure that you understand what the risks are and have the right measures in place to protect data.
1: Managing the personal information of employees, contractors and visitors
Whether you’re building or managing a residential or commercial space, you have legal obligations in respect of the personal information you collect and use. You likely collect data about employees, contractors, tenants and visitors. Failure to handle this data in accordance with the requirements of the Australian Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act (APPs) could see you facing fines of up to $2.1m (soon to be the greater of $10m, 3 times the benefit and 4% of the annual domestic group revenue), damages of around $10,000 per complainant and irreparable damage to your reputation.
Ensure you are aware of all data you collect, hold and/or share that could constitute personal information. That is, information that could reasonably identify an individual, including if mixed with other generally available information .
If you have a sign-in or registration process for site visitors, for example, you should ensure that this system and your specific uses of it comply with Australian privacy law. In particular, you can generally only collect personal information if it is related to your organisation’s functions and activities and you give notice of your privacy policy.
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Google reviews and the legal loopholes that leave GPs exposed
The Australian Medical Association (NSW) Limited is an independent association representing the state's medical profession.
9th December 2019
Last month, AMA NSW warned that Google reviews were being used to destroy doctors’ reputations. This article, originally published in the organisation’s house magazine The NSW Doctor, explains what is happening and the legal loopholes that are leaving doctors exposed.
All negative online reviews can be confronting, but none more so than those tied directly to your business page listing.
It can take a minimum of 12 years of education and training to become a plastic surgeon, but seconds to ruin a doctor’s online reputation.
Reputational damage and the legal responsibility of review platforms to monitor and respond swiftly to complaints of allegedly defamatory material are the broader issues being examined by the NSW Supreme Court.
In a landmark case, a Sydney plastic surgeon is suing Google for defamation over business reviews which, according to his statement of claim, indicated he had “butchered” patients, was “incompetent”, a “fraud”, an “illicit drug user” and had “no morals”.
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Our privacy is bought and sold — let’s take control
We live in a world where organisations have learnt to exploit our privacy for commercial and political gain. They have the tools to gather and store intimate details about our lives without our knowledge or consent.
This information can be used to maximise the impact of marketing, or to distort our political preferences by using fake information. At the heart of this lies the privacy of the individual. Australians give this up voluntarily when they post material on a social media platform.
Others have no idea what they are surrendering when they click a button without reading the lengthy terms and conditions. Few people know where their personal data will end up, including to whom it will be sold.
This is a problem that demands government intervention. The power of multinational and even local businesses is enormous compared to that of the individual. These entities can structure how they engage with us and sell products so as to leave consumers confused and ignorant in a way that will maximise profits. This can even occur without our data being kept secure, leaving people open to having their identity or credit details stolen.
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Safety, risk and wellbeing on dating apps: final report
Kath Albury, Paul Byron, Anthony McCosker, Tinonee Pym, Jarrod Walshe, Kane Race, Doreen Salon, Tim Wark, Jessica Botfield, Daniel Reeders, Christopher Dietzel
The rise of dating apps generates a number of issues regarding cultures of health and wellbeing, including risks of sexual assault and STI transmission. News reports of sexual privacy breaches (in the form of image-based abuse, or large scale data leaks), along with harassment, sexual assault and murder have heightened tensions around the use of dating apps. Despite this, little evidence exists regarding the role apps currently play in users’ everyday negotiations of consent, condom use, contraception, personal safety, and other aspects of sexual health and wellbeing.
This project responds to the need to provide more detailed firsthand accounts to better understand the way health, wellbeing and safety are experienced through dating apps. The report outlines key findings of a two-year ARC Linkage partnership between Swinburne University of Technology, ACON Health, Family Planning NSW and the University of Sydney.
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Transparency key for government AI initiatives: Dominello
NSW government working on an AI user guide for agencies
Editor, Computerworld | 8 December 2019 16:26 AEDT
New South Wales customer service minister Victor Dominello says acceptance of government use of artificial intelligence (AI) will have to be built on what he describes as the “four pillars of trust”: Privacy, security, transparency and ethics.
“I think trust is always an issue,” Dominello said when questioned at an event for media and startups held last week in Sydney whether the fallout from the federal government’s ‘robodebt’ scheme would have a flow-on effect on acceptance of AI and algorithm-driven decision-making in general.
“Good customer experience has to be built on trust,” the minister said. “And that good customer experience, then builds up trust — [but] I can't give you a good customer experience unless the trust is in place first.”
The “biggest question” over the next five to 10 years as AI adoption hits its stride is “transparency,” Dominello said.
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'Deeksie' and Kaye present Mind Your Own Retirement Episode 24
Hank Jongen shares his true feelings about his role as Centrelink spokesperson, then explains what anyone travelling this holiday season may need to consider before they leave.
YourLifeChoices Writers ADHA Propaganda
8th Dec 2019
In episode 24 of Mind Your Own Retirement, Deeksie reveals his ideal Christmas gift and Kaye shares why no one is on her Christmas list this year.
Then, Hank Jongen shares his true feelings about his role as Centrelink spokesperson, then explains what anyone travelling this holiday season may need to consider before they leave, including how travel affects the payments of all manner of pensions, any reductions that may occur with your payments or entitlements while you’re away, and the Medicare cruise loophole that may save you big money on healthcare at sea. He also explains how you can best ensure you aren’t unfairly penalised for being on holiday and when Centrelink is closed for reporting and payments dates.
Next, the team is joined by Professor Meredith Makeham, who is the chief medical adviser to the Australian Digital Health Agency, the system operator of the MyHealthRecord platform. Prof. Makeham explains how MyHealthRecord works, who can access your information and how you could benefit by being a part of the system.
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Legal, Data Privacy, IT, Health, OH&S
9 DECEMBER 2019
NSW Ambulance Service settles privacy class action
On the 9 December 2019 the NSW Supreme Court will decide whether to accept a settlement of a class action led by Tracy Evans against the NSW Ambulance Service over a major data breach.
The NSW Ambulance Service privacy class action is a first in Australia and it has been a long journey for Tracy Evans who has fought for justice for herself and around 130 other NSW Ambulance employees who had their workers compensation files, staff and medical records accessed by a NSW Ambulance contractor.
BACKGROUND:
In 2017 Centennial Lawyers filed a class action lawsuit against the NSW Ambulance Service in the Supreme Court of NSW.
The lead plaintiff, Tracey Evans, alleged that a contractor employed by the NSW Ambulance Service was allowed to access and collect the personal workers compensation information of around 130 Ambulance Service employees. The contractor then sold the personal and medical details to at least one firm of solicitors.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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