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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 were dated 6 December, 2018 and we have seen none since!
It is worth pointing out that it was only in last little while ( beginning end July 2020 ) the ADHA took down the notification regarding the most recent minutes notification. Embarrassed I guess – as they should be! I wonder will the new CEO make a difference?
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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https://digitalhealth.org.au/blog/board-nominations-open/
AIDH Board nominations open
The Institute is calling for nominations to the Board.
The constitution was written with terms for each nominated Board member to ensure corporate knowledge of both the HISA Board and the ACHI Council was retained at the same time as the Institute moves forward.
There are three (3) vacancies for a three (3) year term.
To nominate, please read through the documentation and complete the nomination form, include your photograph and 150-word candidate statement letting Fellows and Members know why they should elect you to their Board and what you can bring to the digital health community by sitting on the Board.
Nominations close at 5pm AEDT Thursday 8 October 2020
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https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-apple-watch-series-6-advances-apples-healthcare-ambition/
How Apple Watch Series 6 advances Apple's healthcare ambition
As Apple adds features like a blood oxygen sensor to the Watch, it's also forging new partnerships to use the device in health initiatives. This fall, Singapore will be the first country to leverage the Watch to improve public health.
By Stephanie Condon for Between the Lines | September 15, 2020 -- 17:56 GMT (03:56 AEST) | Topic: Mobility
The new Apple Watch Series 6 will let users measure their blood oxygen levels, giving them easy access to another important health metric. The new capability underscores how Apple is turning the Apple Watch largely into a health and wellness device, as it grows Apple's overall focus on healthcare.
Blood oxygen levels are "a key measurement that contains critical information," Sumbul Ahmad Desai, Apple's VP for health, said during the Time Flies virtual event on Sept. 15. It's essentially a measure of how much oxygen your red blood cells are carrying.
Using advanced algorithms to measure reflections of green, red and infrared light plus a new sensor, the Apple Watch Series 6 can provide a measurement in 15 seconds, Apple said Tuesday.
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http://medicalrepublic.com.au/the-witch-the-lion-and-the-telephone/34636
18 September 2020
The Witch, the Lion and the Telephone
Posted by Jeremy Knibbs
Mixed and cheesy metaphors for this week’s op ed will be Wizard of Oz, Alice and Wonderland and, see heading.
We definitely have left Kansas, we’re never going back, we’ve already taken a few steps down a deep and labyrinthine rabbit hole, we won’t be back out for some years to come probably, and no one has much of an idea of where this thing – telehealth – is taking us, or ends. That is at once exciting and scary. Just like a fairytale.
GPs, in particular will need to put their seatbelts on.
How you integrate telehealth moving forward into your workflows will determine both how much you get paid, and how much you improve the quality of your patient experience and care in the near term. For the next couple of years it could hardly be more important to pay attention to and engage with the machinations and politics of telehealth.
The only problem is, we are all flying pretty much blind at this stage.
Notwithstanding there are no roadmaps or precedents for us to work from – there is scant international evidence or data that compares to where we are – our starting point is a pretty good one politically.
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Lead a new joint AMC and ADHA technology and medical education project
Date published: Sep 17, 2020, 16:47 PM
Summary
The AMC and ADHA are seeking a motivated and engaged Chair of the Advisory Group for their new joint project.
Description
The Australian Medical Council (AMC) and the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) have partnered in a new project to understand how technology impacts the standards of medical education, training and practice in Australia.
An Advisory Group has been established to provide expert advice and feedback to the project and its components from peak bodies in medicine and stakeholders of digital health.
The project aligns with the AMC’s role as:
- a national standards body for medical education and training
- the accreditation authority for the medical profession under the Health Practitioner Regulation National Law
The ADHA is tasked with improving health outcomes for Australians through the delivery of digital healthcare systems and the national digital health strategy for Australia.
The Advisory Group will:
- Contribute to the strategic platform of change for the continuum of medical education in digital health
- preparing a horizon series strategic paper to set out supportive plans for building capability in digital health across medical education in Australia
- Create a digital capability framework for medicine
- to identify and support the development of foundational digital health capabilities across the Australian medical education and practice continuum
- including high-level plans for teaching and learning, assessment and measurement of project impact
- Engage with medicine stakeholders in an online forum
- share insights into current,
emerging and personalised health technologies
discuss the AMC and ADHA strategies and priorities related to digital health in medicine - share good practice models in digital health medical education
- discuss opportunities and risks that have emerged in medicine during COVID-19, related to digital technologies in medical education
- consult with the broader medical profession on a model for a digital capability framework of foundational capabilities
The Advisory Group is not a decision-making body. It provides expert guidance, advice and support to the project, the AMC and the ADHA.
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Australian Digital Health Agency advises digital caution and training as telehealth sector grows
Use of technology has become more prominent than ever since the COVID-19 pandemic began. With this in mind, the Australian Digital Health Agency urges people to consider the security of the devices being used each day.
People are relying on digital transactions in all spheres of life, including healthcare. The expression “Internet of Things” IoT was coined to describe this increasingly pervasive layer of smart device-to-device and device-to-network interaction.
More and more devices are gaining “smart” functionality, in which connectivity enables interactions with other devices to deliver a richer, easier to use experience for end-users. While smart devices offer enhanced functionality, they also increase potential exposure to cybersecurity risks.
The Internet of Things may have been an intangible concept a few years ago but is now an integral part of everyday life, work and business. Smart devices including watches, home monitoring devices, mobiles and tablets are widely used. For the most part, every aspect of life is, in some way, shape or form already a part of the Internet of Things.
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Code ‘not about propping up media companies’, says ACCC’s rod Sims
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims has moved to dispel myths and misinformation about the upcoming mandatory media bargaining code, responding to claims from Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes and others that the legislation was merely an attempt by the media industry to stymie innovation.
Speaking to The Australia Institute’s chief economist, Richard Denniss, and its deputy director, Ebony Bennett, on Thursday, Mr Sims said the upcoming world-first code, which would force Google and Facebook to negotiate with media publications and pay them for their journalism, was not about propping up media companies.
Mr Cannon-Brookes, a software billionaire, described the proposed legislation as “legalised theft”, while others in the tech industry compared news publications’ current plight with Netflix taking revenue that previously would go to pay-TV companies.
Mr Sims hit back at the analogy, pointing out that Google and Facebook do not produce news, and that the code therefore was “not about subsidy, and is just about addressing a market power imbalance — one that really matters to the future of our society.”
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Healthcare chiefs bemoan Australian medical sector remaining stuck on paper
They describe how many general practitioners still use paper records -- and even fax.
By Aimee Chanthadavong | September 17, 2020 -- 06:57 GMT (16:57 AEST) | Topic: Innovation
A panel of healthcare professionals have underscored there is still room to develop and improve the way health services are delivered in Australia, with the belief that technology has a crucial role to play.
Bendigo Health CEO Peter Faulkner labelled Australia's healthcare sector as "fragmented", particularly in how technology investments are made.
"Health services are very good at investing in clinical technology but are not so committed in the investment of information technology," he said, speaking during a virtual event on Thursday.
"It does give rise to what I call 'digital inequity' and, in some instances, digital poverty within health systems and services, and certainly across communities.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bf1de5ca-d681-435e-a385-3567616d9323
Challenges and opportunities facing Australia’s digital health sector
While the COVID-19 pandemic has presented a number of challenges for Australia’s digital health sector, it has also accelerated the use of digital health technologies, opening up potentially significant growth opportunities for the sector.
ANDHealth’s recent report on Australia’s nascent digital health sector, Digital Health – The sleeping giant of Australia health technology industry, highlights a number of challenges and opportunities facing the sector following the impact of COVID-19.
- The global digital health market is predicted to reach US $505.4 billion by 2025, up from US $86.4 billion in 2018.
- Pre COVID-19, investment in the sector was growing steadily. However, following the first reported COVID-19 death in January 2020, investment in the sector dropped dramatically, and that trend is forecast to continue in the short to medium term.
- Despite this, 84% of Australian survey respondents indicated their intention to raise capital in the year ahead, signalling optimism in the Australian digital health sector.
- Australian digital health technology development focuses on a diverse set of technologies, including data analytics and systems (25%), mobile-health (22%), AI and machine learning (14%), platform as a service (11%), connected devices and wearables (10%), and telemedicine and telehealth (9%).
- Globally, key areas which are positioned for greater growth due to COVID-19 include telemedicine, remote monitoring, symptom checkers and triage tools, digital therapeutics, tools for expediting drug discovery and clinical trials, and clinical decision support technologies.
Given the opportunities for growth in these technologies, key regulatory issues for companies in this sector will concern data management and regulation of software as a medical device under the Australian therapeutic goods regime. Companies that are able to navigate these frameworks will be well placed to accelerate growth both during and after the pandemic.
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Why you shouldn't post a picture of a boarding pass on social media
By Tim Biggs
September 18, 2020 — 11.18am
Security experts are repeating warnings to keep pictures of documents with personal information and barcodes — such as boarding passes and tickets — off social media, after the latest instance of such information being misused.
Earlier this week self-described "hacker" Alex Hope detailed in a long blog post how he used an Instagram post from former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, showing a boarding pass, to discern his passport number and other personal details.
Hope warned Qantas and Mr Abbott about the breach, but it shows how easily images like this can be used for identity fraud or other crimes.
Mark Gorrie, the Australia-Pacific senior director of cybersecurity company NortonLifeLock, said boarding passes featured information that can make it very easy for anyone to uncover more personal details than what are printed on the paper.
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How private sector data is 'revolutionising' government
Tom Burton Government editor
Sep 17, 2020 – 8.56pm
The use of big private data sets is revolutionising government according to Australian statistician, Dr David Gruen.
Dr Gruen made his comments after being appointed to lead the Australian Public Service Data profession, as part of major strategy to lift digital and data capability in the federal government.
The strategy is a response to David Thodey's review of the Australian Public Service (APS) that cited a Boston Consulting Group data maturity index which found the federal government was in an early stage digital literacy and lagged comparable governments and industrial sectors.
The Australian government is in the early digital literacy phase and lags other developed governments according to the Boston Consulting Group 2018 digital acceleration index. APS Independent Review
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/accc-dares-facebook-to-block-news-content-553496
ACCC dares Facebook to block news content
By Byron Kaye on Sep 18, 2020 6:30AM
'It's their call'.
Facebook will be "weakened" if it stops Australians from sharing news so the company can avoid paying for content under proposed laws, Australia's top antitrust regulator said on Thursday.
Australia has proposed forcing Facebook and internet search giant Google to pay local media outlets for content, drawing strong opposition from the US companies in a dispute that is being watched by regulators and news organisations around the world.
Facebook said this month it would stop Australians from sharing local and international news on its website if the proposal becomes law.
The company and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) are still negotiating before the regulator makes a formal recommendation to the government.
"It would be a shame for Australian democracy (and) it would be a shame for Facebook users if they took that course of action," ACCC chair Rod Sims said in a speech delivered via Zoom.
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September 16, 2020 5.30pm AEST
Author
Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of Canberra
The federal government has announced a plan to increase the sharing of citizen data across the public sector.
This would include data sitting with agencies such as Centrelink, the Australian Tax Office, the Department of Home Affairs, the Bureau of Statistics and potentially other external “accredited” parties such as universities and businesses.
The draft Data Availability and Transparency Bill released today will not fix ongoing problems in public administration. It won’t solve many problems in public health. It is a worrying shift to a post-privacy society.
It’s a matter of arrogance, rather than effectiveness. It highlights deficiencies in Australian law that need fixing.
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IDC Digital Transformation Award Finalists Announced For Australia And New Zealand
Wednesday,
16 September 2020, 4:10 pm
Press Release: IDC
Sydney, 16 September 2020 – IDC has announced this year’s finalists in the Digital Transformation (DX) Awards for Australia and New Zealand. The Awards recognise the achievements of organisations that have successfully digitised one or multiple areas of their business through the application of digital and disruptive technologies.
Winners will be announced at the virtual DX Summit and Awards on 14 September.
IDC Australia and New Zealand Managing Director, and judge, Tehmasp Parekh, said “The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the importance of digital transformation in the eyes of CEOs across all industries. With a recession hitting us, CEOs are at a decision point – to follow the same course of cost cutting as all previous recessions have dictated, or to flatten their own organisation's recessionary curve by leveraging technology. This year’s finalists embody the leadership that Australia and New Zealand businesses have shown under trying conditions to build business resiliency. Congratulations to each finalist. We look forward to celebrating the achievements on the 14th of October.”
……
‘Special Award for Resiliency’ distinguishes organisations that have shown ability to adapt and respond to changing circumstances especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, while maintaining the organisation’s central purpose, especially for its workforce, customers, and other stakeholders
Finalists:
Australian Digital Health Agency (Australia)
City of Port Phillip (Australia)
Domino's (Australia)
IRT Group (Australia)
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Steven Issa, Chief Digital Officer at Australian Digital Health Agency
Insights from Industry Leaders
Steven Issa is the Chief Digital Officer at the Australian Digital Health Agency. Steven is responsible for reviewing international experience and trends and local innovation to help set the national digital health agenda for the Australian health sector. He is an experienced senior executive and has worked in a variety of public and private sector environments including being a lecturer at the University of Sydney prior to joining the Agency.
Ccentric is a market-leading executive search firm in Australia with an exclusive focus on healthcare, academic healthcare, digital health, and not-for-profit and human services – industries that improve the quality of life. Ccentric has four division including Ccentric Executive Search, CcSelection, CcInterim and CcLeadership which allow Ccentric to assist clients with their needs ranging from mid-level leadership to c-suite executive search, interim management, leadership assessment and succession planning.
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Robotic process automation in health care
By Daniel
Pullen*
Monday, 14 September, 2020
Digitisation has skyrocketed lately, as companies all over the world try to find new ways of compensating for the issues brought about by remote work. Customer interactions and internal operations have ‘gone under the spell’ of automation technologies even more so than before the pandemic.
Resilience has trumped efficiency as the meta-goal that businesses strive for in some cases, and robotic process automation (RPA) is a key factor promoting it. This is the case across the industry spectrum, but we will focus on one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic outbreak: health care.
Many pharma R&D companies have leveraged automation to support clinical testing for vaccine development and accelerate data processing. The hospital system managed to balance demand and supply to optimise the huge surge in the need for protective equipment. Healthcare providers relied on RPA to support claims and revenue management despite the discharge of more than half the back-office staff.
In fact, Bain & Company research finds that as many as 81% of healthcare companies have used automation acceleration in response to COVID-19, trying to optimise overall costs and to deal with challenges like hospital backlogs, increasingly scarce resources and an influx in demands.
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Making good on Facebook's threat to Australia
Chris Zappone
Digital Foreign Editor
September 14, 2020 — 11.30pm
Facebook’s threat to block Australia from news on its platform comes at an opportune time.
As social media-enabled chaos disrupts the political order of the US, Australia should think about the role it wants social media to play in forming political opinions at home.
From Donald Trump’s tweets, to anti-5G protests, to QAnon – the rising trend of conspiracy theory is a cost imposed on society by social media – different yet relevant to the financial consideration sought by Australia from the Big Tech platforms.
Under the proposed reforms, technology platforms like Facebook and Google would be forced to reimburse Australia's media companies for use of their articles and allow their algorithms to be scrutinised for their effects on consumers and the market. The government hopes to pass the bill before the end of the year.
Silicon Valley’s tug-of-war with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over the proposed news media bargaining code should prompt the bigger question of whether this technology – including Facebook – supports or hinders a stable democracy and society?
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http://medicalrepublic.com.au/telehealth-a-game-of-snakes-and-ladders/34419
15 September 2020
Telehealth: a game of snakes and ladders
As the 30 September deadline looms, it is timely to examine whether the COVID-19 telehealth MBS numbers should stay or go.
Ideally, this should be measured by whether doctors and patients believe the scheme to be a success, failure, or somewhere in between.
Telehealth services were rolled out in the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic as Australia was hit with the first wave. By this stage, Australians had been exposed to countless images of patients and their treating teams falling victim to COVID-19 across the globe. Unique MBS item numbers were introduced to allow general practitioners and specialist doctors to access Medicare without a face-to-face consultation.
Most general practices and practitioners adopted the policy quite quickly and defaulted to using the telephone to assess, diagnose and manage their patients. Other specialists may have incorporated the use of interactive devices and software such as Zoom. Regardless of the technology, we had all entered a brave new world of delivering patient care, in the hope that the spread of this highly contagious virus would be curtailed.
The federal government celebrated this unique initiative, which had been used in various versions across other countries such as the UK for several years. What they did not announce, however, and what came as a great shock to providers of medical services, was the mandatory bulk-billing of most patients for telehealth. Overnight, some practices and GP contractors saw their income fall by up to 60%. In addition, they were requested to do a lot more for a lot less because of the high administrative burden.
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Cutting telehealth will 'drop defences' against coronavirus pandemic, mental health advocates warn
By political reporter Stephanie Dalzell
15 September, 2020
With subsidised telehealth sessions due to expire in two weeks, mental health experts have urged the Federal Government to extend the service, arguing they have been a critical defence against the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key points:
- Telehealth allows people to see their psychologists through video conferencing rather than face to face
- The service was expanded at the beginning of the pandemic and the Government is working to make it permanent
- Mental health experts say removing the support will lead to more stress for people with mental illness
In March, the Government set aside $669 million to expand Medicare subsidies for telehealth services, allowing health professionals like GPs and psychologists to consult with patients over video conferencing sites rather than face to face.
The scheme is due to end on September 30, but a spokesman for the Health Minister Greg Hunt said discussions were underway with peak groups to keep it going.
"To modernise our health system with the permanent implementation of whole of population telehealth, a decade earlier than anticipated," he said.
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We don’t oppose a code, says Google
Google today has published a fresh open letter where it seems more amenable to paying news media for content that it uses.
The letter again is linked to Google’s home page, where previously it ran a scare campaign with another letter that suggested the searching capabilities of Australians are at risk on Google and YouTube.
While not conceding ground, the new letter takes on a more conciliatory tone.
“Over the past few weeks, we’ve been really clear that we do not oppose a code of conduct governing the relationship between news media and digital platforms like Google,” the new letter says.
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How social platforms allow your data to be weaponised
Weaponised information, ideological censorship and unfiltered images of horror came in a week that showed the peril of life seen through a social media window.
Paul Smith Technology editor
Sep 14, 2020 – 12.19pm
When Australians woke on Monday and read about the industrial scale of personal information harvesting of influential citizens on behalf of Chinese intelligence agencies, via social media and other online sources, they saw another layer added to a growing pile of revelations about the peril of life seen through a social media window.
The stories revealed the ability of Chinese operatives to mine the vast amount of data available online to knit together detailed profiles of millions of people around the world, and to use the data to seed divisive misinformation campaigns across various social platforms.
It is conceivable that US, British, Australian and other nations are also mining and scraping publicly available information for their own ends, highlighting just how much people have told the world about their lifestyles, beliefs and proclivities, in Tweet-sized chunks.
While a CEO or politician might feel like they are simply giving their followers an appealing dash of personal charm with a Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter post about the relaxing weekend they spent at their in-laws' place in Bellingen, they are, in effect, helping operatives pull together data points and map their contacts in alarming detail.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/you-re-on-the-china-list-now-what-20200914-p55vhd
You're on the China list, now what?
If you're one of 35,000 Australians whose name appears on China's leaked social media warfare database, here's a few things to think about.
Ronald Mizen and Natasha Gillezeau
Sep 14, 2020 – 8.23pm
When military officers obtain a one-star rank – a brigadier in the Army – they're given a none too subtle reminder that seniority comes with risk.
In one example relayed to The Australian Financial Review, a group of middle-aged male officers were asked if any of them looked like Tom Cruise.
No? Then think about why that gorgeous woman finds you interesting.
EJ Wise, principal at Wise Law and founder of the Australia Cyber Law Institute, says there is a valuable lesson in the story for anyone who now finds themselves named on China's leaked social media warfare database.
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How China's database targeted Australia's space industry
Angus Grigg National affairs correspondent
Sep 15, 2020 – 12.00am
Leading figures in Australia's nascent space industry suspect their extensive profiling in a Chinese database can be linked to repeated cyber attacks, as Beijing seeks a technological advantage in the strategic sector.
The focus on advanced technology in the Overseas Key Individuals Database (OKIDB), revealed by The Australian Financial Review on Monday, and China's history of intellectual property theft indicate how the information may have been mobilised.
"It is a very old Chinese playbook," said Pamela Melroy, a former NASA space shuttle commander now working with the Australian space industry.
"The first step is to identify what technology is out there and then the next step is often major hacking."
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Doctor Care Anywhere rides online consultation boom
Simon Evans Senior Reporter
Sep 14, 2020 – 12.01am
The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly accelerated a structural shift to online shopping in the retail sector and the chief executive of digital health company Doctor Care Anywhere says a similar big shift has happened in medicine where online consultations are booming.
Three Australian institutional investors, Thorney, Regal Funds Management and Perennial Value ploughed a combined $23 million into the British-based company in July, and chief executive Dr Bayju Thakar says the group is poised to expand into Australia. It is also looking closely at a potential listing on the ASX via Bell Potter, which could value the business at up to $200 million.
"We've been looking at Australia for a number of months now. We'd really like to put our stake in the ground in 2021,'' Dr Thakar said.
The group, which has a workforce of 320 people comprising 200 software engineers and administrative staff and 120 doctors and specialists, makes 90 per cent of its revenue in the United Kingdom.
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Database sends warning about political interference
What may seem a harmless family post or a statement of political opinion in a free country, on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter, can yield military-grade intelligence.
Sep 14, 2020 – 4.55am
All countries conduct intelligence gathering operations to collect information about influential foreign nationals. This is part of the normal diplomatic and national security efforts.
What is concerning and sets apart China's intelligence gathering is how the information that can now be collected by mining of open sources of data may be being weaponised to engage in unacceptable political interference in the democratic process in countries such as Australia.
As reported exclusively today by The Australian Financial Review, the profiles of 35,000 Australians appear on a leaked international database compiled by a Shenzhen-based firm Zhenhua Data, whose clients include the Chinese Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army.
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Why Google believes the media bargaining code is flawed
Reasonable changes to the ACCC's proposed code will allow news organisations to be paid fairly for content without harming Australia's digital economy.
Melanie Silva Contributor
Sep 13, 2020 – 1.43pm
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's media bargaining code, which is designed to govern the relationship between news media and digital platforms – including how news content should be paid for – will have a big impact on the future of the country's digital economy and millions of Australians who use platforms such as Google’s.
It’s vital we get it right before it becomes law, which is why Google has engaged in good faith with the ACCC inquiry and consultation process since it was launched in 2017.
Our position on the regulation is clear. We do not oppose a code that oversees the relationships between news publishers and digital platforms and we’ve been committed to playing a constructive role in the process from the start. In fact, all the parties involved here agree on two things: journalism is important to democracy, and the business models that fund journalism have changed.
What we oppose is a mandatory bargaining code that’s unworkable, both for Google as a business, and for Australians.
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Three perspectives on treating via telehealth
Thursday, 10 September, 2020
The COVID-19 crisis presented healthcare practitioners across the globe with an urgent challenge: adopt telehealth technology or miss out on being able to consult and treat patients.
As the world continues to grapple with the virus, thousands of healthcare professionals have turned to telehealth technology to maintain business and continuity of care with their patients, all from the comfort and safety of their own homes. Spare rooms and home offices have been transformed into the virtual patient consultation rooms.
Three healthcare professionals — adopting telehealth platform Coviu — describe how they’ve managed to keep their businesses running — and in some cases, growing...
Psychology practice
Ailie O’Flaherty works as a Psychologist at Esteem Psychology, a Newcastle-based clinical psychology practice.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, O’Flaherty and the team had limited experience using telehealth and much preferred a face-to-face healthcare approach. Now, O’Flaherty describes the technology as ‘mainstream’ and says she will continue using it as a regular part of her practice.
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Govt systems to be classed critical infrastructure under cyber reforms
By Justin Hendry on Sep 14, 2020 6:59AM
Home Affairs boss reveals.
Select federal government systems and networks will be classified critical infrastructure alongside nationally significant private sector systems, Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo has revealed.
Pezzullo confirmed during a webinar hosted by cyber security company CyberCX on Friday that planned changes to critical infrastructure laws will also extend to some government systems.
“Certain assets and networks within government will be designated as critical infrastructure, so they’ll also be able to be actively defended by the Australian Signals Directorate,” he said.
It is the first acknowledgement that government will be recognised as a critical infrastructure sector, though whether the same rules being thrust upon private entities will apply is not yet known.
The critical infrastructure powers, which are a central plank of the 2020 cyber security strategy, aim to uplift the security and resilience of systems and ensure networks can be defended.
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Sunday, 13 September 2020 00:37
Privacy an issue with blockchain platforms, rise of digital connectivity, warns UniSA tech researcher
Key privacy issues inherent to current blockchain platforms, suggesting greater effort should be made to refine the technology so it conforms to privacy rights and expectations, are amongst the key findings of new research from the University of South Australia.
According to the research the rise of digital connectivity has brought profound benefits in some areas, but serious disruption has followed in others and, increasingly, people recognise the need to avoid “techno-pitfalls” in the future.
UniSA emerging technologies researcher, Dr Kirsten Wahlstrom, says that one of the biggest worries about our digital lives is privacy, and she believes the next generation of connected software and hardware could push the issue to breaking point.
“We’re at a really delicate point with this because, increasingly, societies
and economies are organised around data, and that has huge implications for
privacy,” Dr Wahlstrom says.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/big-money-technology-general-practice-and-the-possible-future/
Big money, technology, general practice and the possible future
September 10, 2020 Jeremy Knibbs
Big money is circling general practice at a time when technology can actually be a transformational tool. But does big money really understand how complex healthcare and GPs are?
In early April 1995, a smartly dressed, young and bright advertising CEO was presenting to the local board of major global information and data provider Thomson (now Thomson-Reuters) on the future of health information. He’d spent about 20 minutes in his preamble, building to the “deal” slide. But when that slide dropped into the projection slot from the Kodak projector carousel, the local Thomson CEO, a cranky old-timer, wasn’t impressed.
He groaned and rolled his eyes.
The slide was a complex spoke-and-wheel diagram in which all points of the Australian healthcare system emanated or passed through one major hub: general practice.
On the general practice box was identified the central acquisition in the plan, a new and emerging electronic scriptwriting software business called Medical Director. Into and out of the GP hub box (or Medical Director) passed most of the major patient transactions that health analysts see as vital today – referrals to specialists and various allied health professionals, hospital patient summaries, scripts and other data to chemists, patients’ health records, payments to Medicare and private insurance, even a direct referral for patients from an emerging cable TV health network that had worked out how to talk directly to their customers through their cable service.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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