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This weekly blog is to explore the news around the larger issues around Digital Health, data security, data privacy, AI / ML. technology, social media 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 still dated 6 December, 2018! How pathetic is that for transparency? Secrecy unconstrained!
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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Governments outsourcing care to keep patients out of emergency rooms
June 21, 2020 — 12.00am
Patients are being diverted from hospital emergency departments to a private telehealth service, which saw users double at the height of the coronavirus pandemic and is bracing for even more demand as restrictions ease.
State and federal government-funded hospitals and urgent care centres in NSW and Victoria have been outsourcing emergency work to My Emergency Doctor, as part of a tele-health push to reduce preventable hospitalisations.
Patients who phone Triple-0 with symptoms deemed to be less than urgent are being diverted to the service by NSW Ambulance and Ambulance Victoria operators, to be connected with an accredited emergency physician.
But experts warn the roll-out of emergency tele-health must be properly evaluated to ensure that patients outcomes are not negatively impacted by the switch.
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https://www.zdnet.com/article/scott-morrison-cries-cyber-wolf-to-deniably-blame-china/
Scott Morrison cries 'Cyber wolf!' to deniably blame China
Australia's prime minister didn't name China as the source of recent 'sophisticated' cyber attacks in Friday's press conference. He didn't have to.
By Stilgherrian for The Full Tilt | June 19, 2020 -- 04:05 GMT (14:05 AEST) | Topic: Security
"Senior sources" in federal government agencies have reportedly confirmed that China is believed to be behind recent cyber attacks targeting all levels of government in Australia, as well as the private sector.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison had avoided blaming China at his press conference on Friday morning.
"I'd simply say this, and that is, the threshold for public attribution on a technical level is extremely high," he said.
"Australia doesn't judge lightly in public attributions, and when and if we choose to do so, it is always done in the context of what we believe to be in our strategic national interest."
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https://www.themandarin.com.au/135285-opinion-covidfail-the-it-debacle-that-could-cost-lives/
Opinion: COVIDFail. The IT debacle that could cost lives
Friday June 19, 2020
Another spate of COVID-19 cases being reported in Victoria. China re-instating restrictions as it sees infections return. Our chief medical officer says his greatest fear is a second wave, and there’s the likelihood the coronavirus will linger around forever like the flu. Another IT debacle from the federal government. But this one is different. In this case we could see people die. We need a tracing app that actually works.
It’s worth noting that Victoria is the only state known to have actually used the COVIDSafe app. More than 20 people who’ve tested positive have allowed its health department to download their data yet this hasn’t identified anyone they didn’t already know about through existing manual contact tracing methods. Presumably the app missed numerous people with whom they must have come into contact.
Millions of Australians are out and about in the false belief that having downloaded the app they are somehow safer, because that’s what the government told them. It’s still running TV commercials telling people to download the app.
Documents released by the Digital Transformation Agency have confirmed that COVIDSafe’s ability to communicate between two locked iPhones – about 40% of the Australian market – was rated as “poor” and this was known at the time it was launched. While Apple and Google are working on a solution, you’d have thought this is something to be sorted out before launching the product, surely?
The big question is, will COVIDSafe ever work? An Oxford University report suggests around 60% of the population needs to be co-opted for a tracing app to be effective. Take-up in Australia appears to have stalled at around 25%. The government itself has said we need a 40% take-up level.
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https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/health/covid19/electronic-prescriptions-explained
Everything you need to know about electronic prescriptions
You no longer have to visit your doctor to have a prescription filled.
19th Jun 2020
In episode 47 of YourLifeChoices’ Mind Your Own Retirement podcast, host John Deeks was joined by chief medical officer for the Australian Digital Health Agency Meredith Makeham to discuss electronic prescriptions.
Read the transcript below.
John
Deeks: Welcome. With so much talk of technology across this
crazy COVID-19 time, something like My Health Record is even more important.
Meredith Makeham: I couldn't agree more, John, it really is. And speaking with
my GP head on, I practise as a GP in Sydney as well, it’s really coming into
its own now. The value and the benefit that we get out of being able to use
digital technology to support the way we are caring for our patients,
particularly in this time where we are trying to use telehealth and all of the
things that go with that. So, there's a lot of things that our digital
infrastructure in the country, like the My Health Record system, like something
called electronic prescribing that's about to come out.
John: Tell me about that. So, I have Thyroxine and a few other odds and sods, so does that mean I can just get my doctor to prescribe it to me electronically?
MM: Yes, there's going to be a way for your doctor, if they’ve got the right system in their practice, and that's probably going to be about 80 per cent of the community of pharmacists and GPs by roughly the end of May. There's going to be a way for them to have a phone consultation or a video consultation with you, write a prescription for you as they normally would, and that prescription will come to you on your mobile phone in a form that we call a ‘token’. Kind of like one of those QR codes that you see that people scan for things. And that’s got all the information about your prescription in it.
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More questions than answers as PM goes on cyber offensive
The Prime Minister had nothing new to say about cyber attacks, as he called out China without mentioning it, but tech execs can use his words for much-needed investment.
Paul Smith Technology editor
Updated Jun 19, 2020 – 2.01pm, first published at 11.36am
It is quite normal for a prime minister to leave a press conference to the sound of shouted unanswered questions, but not so normal for that question to be "what was that all about then?"
His Friday morning reveal that Australia has been facing a sustained major cyber intrusion campaign by a foreign state-based actor had all the hallmarks of a major story, but ended up being generic to the point of banality.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison didn't give any details of cyber attacks that most in the industry didn't already know, but that doesn't mean the announcement was pointless.
To television viewers who never think twice about cyber security - except when their Facebook gets hacked - the announcement would undoubtedly have sounded suitably scary. But to anyone involved in the sector it was simply a well-staged statement of the obvious.
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Thursday, 18 June 2020 18:21
It looks like Australia's bid for a digital tax may not get very far
The chances that Australia will be able to impose its will on digital giants Google and Facebook, as far as getting them to pay for using news from local outlets goes, appear rather slim, with indications that the US Government may pressure the Coalition to back off.
According to a Reuters report, Washington has pulled out of talks with European countries over a digital tax, claiming that there has been no progress.
Both Facebook, which gave an insolent reply to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission regarding its proposal on a mandatory code for payment, and Google, which has also effectively told Canberra to take a walk, know they have support from the big boys in power.
France had already decided to impose a 3% digital services tax when the US started threatening retaliation in the form of tariffs. This month, Washington opened an investigation into this tax, and also those announced by Britain and Spain, claiming that they target American companies.
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Friday, 19 June 2020 03:23
Australians willing to share data with government agencies in exchange for better service
The majority of Australian citizens are willing to share personal information with government agencies in exchange for better service, according to a global study.
The study by management consulting firm Accenture, based on a survey of more than 6,500 respondents across 11 countries in Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, including 500 Australians, found the vast majority (72%) of Australian respondents, are open to sharing their personally identifiable data with a government department in exchange for a more personalised customer service experience.
Additionally, nearly half (46%) of the Australians said they would be comfortable with their personal information being shared between government agencies if it would enhance customer service.
“In recent years governments have taken positive steps to secure and protect citizen and organisational data,” said John Vidas, Client Group Lead – Health & Public Service, Accenture Australia & New Zealand.
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Victoria Police admits officers trialled Clearview AI facial recognition tool
By Justin Hendry on Jun 18, 2020 9:58PM
After FOI documents released.
Victoria Police has admitted to trialling the controversial facial recognition tool Clearview AI after previously denying that officers had used the software.
Documents released under freedom of information this week confirm at least five police officers signed up to use the software as part of a trial from late 2019.
The FOI request was made by IT consultant and analyst Justin Warren after the force declined to confirm its use of the software following news reports earlier this year.
Victoria Police was one of 2200 law enforcement agencies globally outed by BuzzFeed News for having had personnel use Clearview AI at one point or another.
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https://anmj.org.au/australians-are-using-and-accessing-medical-histories-on-my-health-record/
Australians are using and accessing medical histories on My Health Record
By ANMJ Staff ADHA Propaganda
June 17th, 2020
Nearly 70% of Australians registered with My Health Record have their medical histories recorded in the system, according to research by the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA).
According to the ADHA report, Statistics and Insights to April 2020, there were 22.75 million records stored by My Health Record, with more than 10 million records filled with data since the voluntary opt-out period for Australians concluded in January 2019.
Nearly two billion documents have been uploaded to the digital storage system. The majority of those documents coming from Medicare and just under 10% coming from members of the public and healthcare providers.
The top five things people want to access are their latest scans and results, notes from their GP, information on medicines they have been prescribed, Medicare information and their immunisation status.
The research indicated that in total 10 million people had their immunisation records uploaded, “[with a] 40% increase in April due to a bulk upload of these important documents,” the ADHA said.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/new-snooping-epidemic-will-outlive-covid-19-297nsqx20
This snooping epidemic will outlive Covid-19
Surveillance tech can help beat virus but we risk it becoming a permanent tool of government
Roger Boyes
Tuesday June 16 2020, 5.00pm BST, The Times
They bugged your phone, fixed cameras into the plasterboard of hotel rooms, strip-searched you at the airport and photocopied your phone book to work out your network of contacts. I’ve been targeted like that by the Stasi, by the Polish SB and the Soviet KGB but they were rank amateurs compared with the surveillance machinery being put in place in the fight against Covid-19. Will this apparatus be dismantled after the virus goes into abeyance? My bet is that, like the post-9/11 US Patriot Act, it will go on and on.
Fear of the coronavirus is institutionalising state surveillance. It is turning privacy intrusion into a social virtue, making public health heroes out of tech innovators who know very well that the tools being used to track the virus can also be used against citizens when the current emergency passes. The result: liberal democracies, corrupted by the new levers of control on offer, will grow more and more like the autocratic societies we supposedly despise.
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Author's Opinion
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of iTWire.
Wednesday, 17 June 2020 11:44
Marise Payne forgot the US also spread disinformation during pandemic
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne has given other countries even more impetus to call this country a lapdog of the US, completely forgetting that the US was among the countries spreading disinformation with a vengeance during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In what was described as her first major speech since the coronavirus started spreading, Payne rightly criticised Russia and China for spreading disinformation during the lockdown.
But she appears to have forgotten that US President Donald Trump went on the record claiming that the virus had leaked from a research institute in Wuhan, China, a point that was repeeated by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
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More economic pain predicted for media
· Reuters
The coronavirus outbreak has prompted a significant increase in news consumption but the economic turmoil is forcing news businesses to accelerate their move to digital, The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism says.
The coronavirus lockdowns prompted a global rise in viewing of television and online news though concerns about misinformation remain high, with Facebook and WhatsApp seen as the main channels for spreading so called "fake news".
The broader picture is that the outbreak is accelerating the trends wrought by the technological revolution, including the rise of smartphones as an interface of news consumption, The Reuters Institute said in its annual Digital News Report.
"The headline is that we see an accelerated move to digital media and mobile media and various kinds of platforms," Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, director of the Reuters Institute, said on Monday.
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Tuesday, 16 June 2020 10:25
You need us, we don't need you, Facebook tells news companies
Social media behemoth Facebook has told the Australian competition watchdog that its community metrics or revenue would not be affected in any way if no Australian news content was available on its web site.
In a 5 June submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which has been tasked with drafting a mandatory code for sharing of revenue between digital platforms and the country's media organisations, Facebook said this was "because news content is highly substitutable and most users do not come to Facebook with the intention of viewing news".
In the same breath, the firm said news organisations needed Facebook, adding: "But the absence of news on Facebook would mean publishers miss out on the commercial benefits of reaching a wide and diverse audience, and social value would be diminished because news would be harder to access for millions of Australians."
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Facebook says it doesn't need news content
Facebook says it's being unfairly targeted by a proposed industry code which would force it and Google to pay for news content on their platforms.
Finbar O'Mallon
Australian Associated Press June 15, 2020 3:55pm
Facebook says it wouldn't be significantly impacted if Australian news outlets pulled content from social media.
The tech giant said it and Google were being unfairly targeted by proposed new regulations to force them to pay for news content on their platforms.
In its submission to the competition watchdog's draft code, Facebook dismissed concerns it shared an unequal market dominance with Google.
"We recognise that there is merit in setting regulatory frameworks to give all Australian media organisations and Australian consumers confidence that we are contributing appropriately in the Australian news ecosystem," it said.
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Facebook won’t share ad revenue
Facebook has rejected demands to share advertising revenue with local media organisations, and threatened to remove news from its platform if it is forced to.
It was “not healthy nor sustainable to expect that two private companies, Facebook and Google, (would be) solely responsible for supporting a public good and solving the challenges faced by the Australian media industry”, it told the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission.
The competition regulator was tasked by Josh Frydenberg in April to develop a mandatory code of conduct dealing with how the two companies should pay for news content generated by local media companies used on their platforms.
“It’s only fair that those that generate content get paid for it,” the Treasurer said at the time.
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https://www.afr.com/technology/how-can-we-help-ai-fight-this-virus-and-the-next-20200614-p552j5
How can we help AI fight this virus and the next?
Australia does not want to miss out on the benefits of data-driven healthcare and clinical practice that is booming in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anna Belgiorno-Nettis and Peter Waters
Jun 15, 2020 – 12.00pm
Artificial Intelligence’s medical potential has rarely felt more important than now. Across the world data-driven technology is helping us respond to COVID-19.
A software start-up flagged Wuhan’s increased pneumonia cases nine days before the World Health Organisation. Tools in the pipeline include a machine learning app that compares Facebook posts with expert disease descriptions to pinpoint outbreak locations, and software that generates vast numbers of COVID-19 drug prototypes for scientists to evaluate.
Australia does not want to miss out on the benefits of data-driven healthcare and clinical practice.
Yet as AI cements its importance to the world’s healthcare, the best way to regulate it remains unclear. Shortly before the pandemic hit, Australia’s proposed regulatory solution was to shoe-horn AI into the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) regime for medical devices.
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https://www.afr.com/technology/hacked-aussie-websites-for-sale-on-dark-web-20200612-p55227
Hacked: Aussie websites for sale on dark web
Ronald Mizen Reporter
Jun 16, 2020 – 12.00am
ASX-listed companies, financial services firms, law firms, an insurance company and an adult entertainment store are among hundreds of Australian websites for sale on the dark web.
The websites are part of a list of 43,000 hacked servers available for sale on MagBo, the shadowy online marketplace where cyber criminals sell access to websites for as little as $US1 ($1.46) and as much as $US10,000.
"It's an important message to get out to Australian businesses," Curve Securities chief executive Andrew Murray said.
Curve offers fixed income advisory services and was one of the websites identified by The Australian Financial Review as being compromised.
Curve's website said it has helped place more than $80 billion for its clients, which includes 160 local, state and federal governments.
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Getting vaccinated at the pharmacy? Make sure it’s recorded properly
June 15, 2020 11.55am AEST
Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Pharmacists are vaccinating more and more people, but those shots are not always ending up in your immunisation record, our report out today shows.
This means your records could be incomplete, leading to unnecessary repeat vaccinations, or it could affect your eligibility for government benefits or work.
Incomplete records also mean health authorities cannot accurately monitor vaccination uptake across the population.
And if we have a vaccine for COVID-19 delivered through pharmacies, accurate record keeping will be important for both individuals and health authorities.
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https://www.afr.com/technology/can-australia-become-known-for-safe-and-ethical-ai-20200614-p552j4
Can Australia become known for safe and ethical AI?
John Davidson Columnist
Jun 15, 2020 – 4.03pm
Liesl Yearsley and Hanno Blankenstein have more in common than merely being overseas-born founders of promising Australian technology start-ups.
Both of them have founded companies that use artificial intelligence (AI) to help create an edge for their customers. Yearsley's company, Akin, is using AI to create bots that can converse with humans in a lifelike way. Blankenstein's company, Unleash Live, uses AI for real-time analysis of video footage coming from security cameras and drones.
Both of them have built their companies around the notion there is money to be made, a business niche to be exploited, by ensuring their AI is ethical, and doesn't use personal information to manipulate or surveil the public.
And both of them might have taken some comfort in events that have unfolded in the US this past week, had their belief in ethical AI not been proved out under such dramatic and tragic circumstances.
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No significant commercial benefit from having news on platform: Facebook
By Fergus Hunter
June 15, 2020 — 12.59pm
Facebook has threatened to reduce the availability of news on its platform in Australia if a code of conduct forcing it to share revenue with media outlets is introduced.
The tech giant rejected the premise of the code being developed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, denying that it derives significant value from having news stories shared on its platform.
In response to an ACCC concepts paper on the code, which is designed to tackle the power imbalance between digital platforms and news media, Facebook said it would not be damaged if news were not available on its service.
"If there were no news content available on Facebook in Australia, we are confident the impact on Facebook's community metrics and revenues in Australia would not be significant because news content is highly substitutable and most users do not come to Facebook with the intention of viewing news," the company said.
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Immunisation status among the top 5 healthcare documents Australians want access to
15 June, 2020: Ten million Australians now have their immunisations in their My Health Record and people can’t get enough of them.
Research undertaken by the Australian Digital Health Agency (Agency) earlier this year showed that the top 5 things people want to access are their test scans and results, notes from their GP, information on medicines they have been prescribed, Medicare information and their immunisation status.
To respond to this demand, the Agency fast tracked information from the Australian Immunisation Register to go into the My Health Record in April for those records which had not been updated.
At the end of April, of the 22.75 million My Health Records nearly 70% had information in them; including nearly 10 million with immunisation information that is critical to keeping Australians safe against preventable infections.
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Media rules must help news providers harness digital platforms' value
By Mia Garlick
June 15, 2020 — 12.00am
Journalism is vital to a healthy democracy. From breaking news and local coverage to investigative reporting, news plays an important function in society, helping people make informed decisions. But in recent decades the news industry has been tested by the digitisation of society and the economy.
There is now a widely recognised need for news organisations to adapt their business models to discover new audiences and digital revenue streams. As they do, we have worked with the Australian government to develop frameworks that promote transparency and accountability on the distribution of news online, as well as protect countervailing benefits of the internet.
We continue to support rules in Australia that ensure the primacy of market-driven models for cross-industry collaboration, encourage innovation, provide certainty for tech investment, and ensure consumer interests are safeguarded.
Based on conversations with Australian news companies, the Australian government and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), we believe a workable code is achievable. It would allow news publishers and digital platforms that distribute news to continue building on existing commercial arrangements, and support the development of a Digital News Council to advance cross-industry collaboration. It would also encourage more transparency for significant changes to the ranking of news content in News Feed and guarantee to publishers we'll continue to share measurement data on how their content performs on Facebook as well as insights on their audiences, without sharing personal user information.
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How COVID-19 has exposed the need for telehealth in aged and assisted care
Thursday, 11 June,
2020
COVID-19 outbreaks have devastated residential aged-care facilities across Australia and the world, as the sector grapples to balance the risks associated with the virus and maintain high levels of patient care. However, from virtual hospitals to video calls with GPs, innovations in telehealth are transforming the industry and pointing the way forward post-pandemic.
Earlier this year, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety revealed that innovation and technology can and should be utilised across Australian aged-care facilities and those living with assisted care at home.
The coronavirus pandemic has only solidified this finding, exposing cracks in the assisted care industry’s capacity to support some of Australia’s most vulnerable residents. Through forced isolation, facility lockdowns and reduced contact with carers and loved ones, not only is the health and safety of elderly residents put in jeopardy, so too is their mental wellbeing. The US National Institute of Health linked social isolation and loneliness to a number of physical and mental conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, anxiety and depression, to name a few.
Tunstall Health and Community Account Manager Alishya Gillham, from Australian provider of connected care and health solutions Tunstall Healthcare, said the pandemic has amplified these existing problems in the older population.
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Will online symptom checkers improve health care in Australia?
Adam G Dunn
Med J Aust 2020; 212 (11): . || doi:
10.5694/mja2.50621
Published online: 15 June 2020
Topics
Health services administration
The available tools are largely unregulated, and do not reliably guide people to the right care at the right time
In times when health services are under increasing strain, digital health technologies such as online symptom checkers appear convenient and cost‐effective tools for reducing the burden on clinics, telemedicine services, and emergency departments. In practical terms, an online symptom checker is a smartphone app or web‐based form that can provide a diagnosis on the basis of a set of self‐reported symptoms. They can suggest diagnoses for a broad range of conditions with which people may present to a clinic or emergency department. When they work properly, symptom checkers should turn current practice guidelines into tools that can diagnose and triage patients at low cost.
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Author's Opinion
Sunday, 14 June 2020 16:37
Twitter deletes accounts partly based on defence lobby group ASPI's word
Social media site Twitter has done what little reputation it has no good by accepting recommendations for deletion of accounts from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an organisation which claims to be an independent think-tank but in reality is a lobby group for big defence and tech firms.
The deletion of more than 23,750 pro-China accounts — and more than 150,000 more that were claimed to be amplifying the message from these — and a smaller number of pro-Russian and pro-Turkish accounts was announced by the company last week.
It mentioned that data about these accounts had been shared with ASPI and the US-based Stanford Internet Observatory. Some of the deletions were said to be for spreading pro-China information about the cornonavirus pandemic.
With the true story of the pandemic yet to be determined — the World Health Organisation will carry out an investigation to find out how it spread — it is not possible at this point to say what is, and what is not, bogus. US President Donald Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were claiming not long ago that the virus emerged from a research institute in Wuhan, while American intelligence agencies were not inclined to believe this.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
3 comments:
This is the most riveting interview from the ADHAs Prof (Dr) Meredith Makeham for a very long time. She is right on the ball with all the facts right at her fingertips. A class act.
https://www.yourlifechoices.com.au/health/covid19/electronic-prescriptions-explained
Now, what was that you said about false news?
Pharmacies failing to report vaccinations to AIR
http://medicalrepublic.com.au/pharmacies-failing-to-report-vaccinations-to-air/30699
"More than half a million pharmacy vaccinations were recorded in the AIR over a four-year period between January 2016 and December 2019, but the actual number administered by registered providers was said to be closer to one million."
If pharamcies don't report an immunisation, it won't end up in a myhr. This just adds to the unreliability of myhr as well as doubts as to the reliability of the AIR.
Not only that, but "the report also found some reported pharmacist vaccinations involved a vaccine and/or administration to an age group that was not permitted in any jurisdiction."
It's that word again - trust.
Re Dr Makeham's puff piece (either she doesn't understand the thing or she is being economical with the truth) there are 4 comments as of 4:00pm 24 June
1. My GP emailed my prescriptions to my Chemist. The Chemist told me that the ones that have repeats will need to be posted the them. In Queensland there is a requirement for pharmacies to have the originals on file
2. Yes I have had the scripts sent through to my Chemist from my Dr
3. My Health Record would be useful if I could access it, but have so far been unable to do so. Despite help from someone via My Gov on the phone it remains elusive. I can only hope that if and when it is needed that my GP or other medical professional has access. So far nobody has been able to help me with the reason I can't get to it. Very unhelpful
4. I have a MY Gov site but I have stopped the My Health Record as I have found the Dr don't always have the right medications written down and I do not want to get given the ones I was allergic to ever again
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