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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?
The new CEO has been in place 6+ weeks – no new minutes obvious yet, or any other major improvements!
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://www.cio.com/article/3596508/the-cio-show-vertical-series-digitising-healthcare.html
The CIO Show: Vertical series - Digitising healthcare
In this episode of The CIO Show, we kick off our monthly verticals series looking at the healthcare sector in Australia and how its digital transformation journey is progressing.
For years, the industry had the dubious distinction of being among the least technically savvy, but that has changed dramatically as improvements in computing and communications have brought us closer to a world where our health records and history become completely digital.
Alastair Sharman, chief digital officer at Queensland's Mater Health, discussed the core pillars he has established to drive and guide digital projects while managing some very large moving parts.
Alan Pritchard, director of EMR and ICT services at Victorian healthcare group Austin Health, responds to the somewhat rhetorical question as to whether IT leaders in health have the same ‘freedom to fail’ as their peers in other industries. Yes, as with most questions in health, the answer is rather nuanced.
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https://marketplace.service.gov.au/2/digital-marketplace/opportunities/9544
Australian Digital Health Agency
3.DH3085 Delivery of a Cyber Threat Intelligence Services and Threat Intelligence Platform
Opportunity ID 9544
Deadline for asking questions Monday 16 November 2020 at 6pm (in Canberra)
Application closing date Wednesday 18 November 2020 at 6pm (in Canberra)
Published Friday 6 November 2020
Panel category Cyber security
Overview
The Australian Digital Health Agency is seeking to purchase a cyber threat intelligence (CTI) service including a Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP). The procurement is to include technical cyber threat intelligence products/services to be integrated into the Agency’s security monitoring capability to allow the Agency to detect and manage threats posed by malicious actors against the healthcare sector, the Agency and the My Health Record system; enable the Agency to search, explore, investigate specific threats and vulnerabilities to the health sector, including its IP addresses, domains, brands, supply chain or technology stack; and request custom threat intelligence products on an ad hoc basis. 1. Cyber threat intelligence services 2. Cyber threat intelligence platform 3. API feed integration 4. Requests for information (ad hoc) Refer to the separate detailed requirements.
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No easy answers on how to best protect our privacy
By Barbara McDonald
November 5, 2020 — 11.32pm
I suppose that if you ask the same question often enough, you might finally get the answer you wanted in the first place.
The Attorney-General has announced a review into Australian privacy law, looking into questions including whether we should enact a statutory civil action for serious invasions of privacy. Yet if Christian Porter looks on his bookshelf at Parliament House, he may well find a report that has already answered those very questions.
Examples of deliberate, often nasty, intrusions and collection of private information include snooping into someone else’s tax or bank records, webcams set up to film a flatmate in the shower, surveillance cameras that record a neighbour’s activities or children in their backyard, “revenge porn” uploaded onto Facebook, and stalking apps and control of communications that are often a precursor to domestic violence. Intrusions by media and law enforcement bodies, the latter sometimes on the media, raise key public interest issues. New technologies like drones and data mining raise others. Then there is the whole gamut of examples of negligent release of people’s personal information. How to deal with all of this?
Between August 2013 and June 2014, I headed a team at the Australian Law Reform Commission, for the Inquiry into Serious Invasions of Privacy in the Digital Era, commissioned by then attorney-general Mark Dreyfus. Our remit was to design the detail of a statutory civil action for serious invasions of privacy, and to make other recommendations about how the law could prevent or redress serious invasions of privacy. Quite a task.
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US Election: Twitter, Facebook flag Trump’s ‘misleading’ posts
· AFP
Twitter and Facebook moved on Thursday AEDT to curb the reach of Donald Trump’s posts questioning the vote-counting process, as a battle over the knife-edge US election spilled into social media.
Twitter and Facebook acted after saying the US President violated platform rules in claiming ballot irregularities from the election.
Mr Trump alleged that there had been “surprise ballot dumps” in states where he had been leading Democrat Joe Biden in the race for the White House.
Twitter’s action made the comments less visible, and users seeking to read the post were required to click through a warning that “some or all of the content shared in this Tweet is disputed and might be misleading”.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2a470b1c-f283-4f2c-b048-e8ced423c809
No longer sci-fi: our bodies as computers
In an era of wrist worn wearables and other emerging wearable technologies, the American Bar Association has published an article examining some of their legal ramifications.
The rise of ambient computing
AI-powered wearables include smart watches, fitness trackers, glasses, headsets, knee braces, ear buds, implanted devices, rings and other patient-centred wearable health devices. For example, Apple Watch has a built-in electrocardiogram monitoring heart rhythms and atrial fibrillation. Smart sweat sensors can detect dehydration and inflammation biomarkers in patients.
Digital health implications
Wearable health devices are useful in empowering users to monitor their own health and to broaden access to medical knowledge. They can be a relevant and helpful input in telemedicine enabling doctors to download information from patients. As the functions in wearables continue to expand, the interplay between wearables and digital health is facing increased regulatory scrutiny.
Some legal issues to consider arising from wearable technology include:
- Liability: Wearable manufacturers failing to detect a health risk could become liable if the user becomes ill or suffers harm. Software programs were previously considered a service or good rather than a product, so benefited from a lower liability than product liability. However, if wearable AI software programs cause injury – such as with autonomous vehicles and robotic surgeries – if there is a product defect it will likely be subject to product liability. Wearable manufacturers could be held liable for insufficient warning labels, punitive damages and class actions. Apart from wearable manufacturers, a physician receiving data from a patient’s wearable could also be liable under medical malpractice if s/he fails to provide reasonable care to mitigate a pending health problem indicated in the patient’s data. To date there is minimal case law on a physician’s duty to monitor a patient’s wearable data.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=65930d3a-779d-44bd-ac16-a84bd8ae258f
Investing in digital infrastructure post COVID-19
As traditional core infrastructure assets face COVID-19 related headwinds, digital infrastructure assets such as data centres and telecommunications networks – which are benefitting from the shift to remote working, online business and ongoing digitisation – have piqued the interest of pension funds and other investors.
But while digital infrastructure has much in common with traditional core infrastructure, it raises a number of unique risks that investors need to consider.
A traditional core infrastructure asset produces cash-flows to equity owners that are forecastable with a reasonably low margin for error. It also possesses certain characteristics, such as operating within an established and stable regulatory environment, maturity in operation beyond the start-up phase, protection against inflation and minimal risk of obsolescence or disruption by new technologies.
Cash flows for traditional core infrastructure assets are underpinned by long-term revenue contracts or concession entitlements. The assets tend to have monopolistic characteristics and are protected by strong barriers to entry (whether regulatory, contractual or market driven). Examples include electricity transmission infrastructure, airports, toll-roads and ports. The investment characteristics of core infrastructure suit long-term investors such as pension and superannuation funds, whose liability profile is similarly long-term.
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A tight race is bad but on social media it is catastrophic
It shouldn't take such a malevolently strange era as the Trump presidency to show that social media platforms need to invest in policing content, a Biden administration must stop this madness.
Paul Smith Technology editor
Nov 5, 2020 – 10.36am
The only thing surprising about the torrents of commentary around US President Donald Trump's false claims about election fraud on Tuesday night is that anyone is surprised that he "went there."
Of course he went there, anyone who spends any time on Twitter or Facebook knew that he would go there, and they should know that whatever people say now, or whatever tags are appended to his posts, millions will believe what he writes.
Setting aside the ridiculous idea that you can call fraud before the votes have been counted (or that counting votes itself is somehow an example of fraud,) Trump knows he can make these claims because so much of public opinion is now formed online. Social media is the Wild West, and he has long been the fastest gun in town.
The uncertainty of a tight US presidential race is the worst outcome on many levels, but on social media it is catastrophic. It sets up a period of limbo in which misinformation, rabble rousing and impotent rage will be everywhere.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/where-is-video-telehealth-heading-for-gps/36550
4 November 2020
Where is video telehealth heading for GPs?
Wild Health and Coviu were joined by a panel of some of Australia’s top digital health influencers last Thursday night for a live webinar and Q&A on the topic of video telehealth.
After being thrust into a new era of telehealth with no forewarning, training, or infrastructure in place, most GPs are using phone over video. This is despite the fact that video consults are widely considered more effective, so much so that the government may differentiate the pricing as way to encourage them. But after such a tough year, the prospect of moving to video may be alarming some GPs without a clear idea of how to get there.
There is a lot to unpack in this topic. But the panellists agreed that the telehealth shift has been potentially the most important and costly change ever to happen in general practice. The model itself has transformed into a merge of face-to-face, telephone, video, and text. And while this is incredibly disruptive, it also paves the way for massive opportunity and flexibility.
The attendees were invited to ask questions of the panellists, and there ended up being too many to answer in just an hour. Below is an edited selection of unanswered questions with responses from Dr Andrew Baird, a GP, digital health advocate and tutor for medical students in professional practice at the University of Melbourne.
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YouTube cut down misinformation. Then it boosted Fox News.
By Jack Nicas
November 4, 2020 — 9.26am
After the 2016 election, engineers at YouTube went to work on changes to an algorithm that had become one of the world's most influential lines of computer code.
That algorithm decided which videos YouTube recommended that users watch next. The company said it was responsible for 70 per cent of the 1 billion hours a day people spent on YouTube. But it had become clear that those recommendations tended to steer viewers toward videos that were hyperpartisan, divisive, misleading or downright false.
New data now show that the effort, which was completed last year, mostly worked. In the weeks leading up to this week's election, YouTube recommended far fewer fringe channels alongside news videos than it did in 2016, which helped it to reduce its spread of disinformation, according to research by Guillaume Chaslot, a former Google engineer who helped build YouTube's recommendation engine and now studies it.
YouTube's efforts also had a knock-on effect: the amplification of Fox News.
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Attend practice software specific training on My Health Record
Date Published: Nov 3, 2020 ADHA Propaganda
The Australian Digital Health Agency is delivering ACRRM PDP accredited one hour sessions until the end of the year, aimed at GPs, specialists, practice managers and practice nurses interested in learning more about My Health Record and how to use it most effectively in routine practice.
Using a software simulation platform, the instructor will demonstrate how to:
- access a patient’s My Health Record;
- use filters to find information;
- •view documents and summary information;
- enter access codes for patients with protected documents or records;
- upload documents to My Health Record; and
- ensure appropriate security and access governance mechanisms are in place.
These sessions will afford an opportunity for participants to raise questions directly with the instructor and, if time permits, to discuss other issues encountered in using My Health Record. The demonstrations will be run on weekly basis at varying times throughout the day. To register, select your software and view the schedule for the next six weeks:
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/practice/are-russian-trolls-blame-antivax-sentiment
Are Russian trolls to blame for anti-vax sentiment?
New Australian research confirms that in an empty space no one hears you scream
15th October 2020
Are automated social media accounts created in Russian ‘troll farms’ spreading anti-vax propaganda on Twitter?
It’s a suggestion that rings true, or at least possible, and was the going theory in 2018 based on a study of 1.8 million tweets.
That study was titled 'Weaponized Health Communication' and published in the American Journal of Public Health.
It looked at Twitter accounts linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, a company that US Congress had declared a “troll farm” owned by allies of President Vladimir Putin. It also looked at Twitter accounts that were “easily recognised as non-human”.
The researchers found these accounts were twice as likely as real accounts to tweet that vaccines were dangerous.
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https://nationalallergystrategy.org.au/news/newsletter-2-november-2020
National Allergy Strategy - November 2020
Over the past couple of months, we have been busy progressing our projects and developing some exciting new resources. ADHA Propaganda
……
My Health Record allergy project
- We are pleased to advise that we will be continuing to work with the Australian Digital Health Agency in 2020-21.
- Our new project plan will involve engaging with clinical immunology/allergy specialists and other health professionals working in allergy and consumers and providing allergy input into ADHA resources.
- Several resources were created in our last project including an informative webinar.
To access these resources or find out more about this project, go to: nationalallergystrategy.org.au/projects/australian-digital-health-agency
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Big tech on the nose as Aussies demand accountability and tougher laws
Overwhelmingly people believe the big tech companies that help shape so many parts of their daily lives are untrustworthy and need bringing into line.
Paul Smith Technology editor
Nov 2, 2020 – 3.00pm
As the air of dread about the civil unrest that could follow the results of the US election drifts slowly Down Under via the social media posts of angry, scared and indignant strangers, it is easy to hanker for the days before Mark Zuckerberg was rejected by girls and created his dangerous vortex of mass-manipulation.
You don't have to be fresh off the couch from a stint in front of Netflix's The Social Dilemma, to realise that something has gone very wrong with the physical world realities of big tech's expanse into so many facets of daily life.
A new study of Australians conducted on behalf of The Australian Financial Review last week showed the majority believe big tech giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon cannot be trusted and should face stronger laws governing the content shared on their platforms.
Elections have always been controversial affairs, but the US tinderbox is dangerously close to ignition, largely because of the divisive bullshit that has been knowingly allowed to proliferate and be amplified for far too long.
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Government mulls weaker tech giant rules amid fierce Google, Facebook lobbying
By Zoe Samios and Lisa Visentin
November 2, 2020 — 5.00am
The federal government is considering weakening new rules designed to force Google and Facebook to pay news publishers following fierce lobbying and threats from the tech giants to leave the Australian market.
Google and Facebook have aggressively lobbied the government to change core elements of a draft news media bargaining code being created by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that both companies have described as "unworkable". The new code will force the tech giants to strike commercial deals with news publishers.
Industry sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the government had approached some publishers including News Corp Australia to gauge their resistance to considering the value of referral traffic they receive from Google and Facebook when negotiating compensation payments.
Among the digital giants' chief complaints is that the code proposes a "one-sided" payment negotiation process that assumes that the tech giants derive value from the existence of news on their platforms, but does not take into account the referral traffic they send publishers.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-kicks-off-long-awaited-privacy-act-review-555383
Govt kicks off long-awaited Privacy Act review
By Justin Hendry on Oct 30, 2020 5:26PM
Terms of reference released.
The federal government has kicked off its review of the Privacy Act, which will consider whether Australians should have the right to have their personal information erased like in the European Union, among other reforms.
Attorney-General Christian Porter on Friday released the terms of reference for the wide-ranging review that the government committed to undertake in response to the digital platforms inquiry in December 2019.
The review will consider whether the Privacy Act, which has not been amended since the introduction of the Australian Privacy Principles (APP) in 2012, remains fit for purpose in the digital economy.
It will build on existing reforms underway to increase the maximum civil penalties under the legislation and introduce a “binding privacy code to apply to social media platforms” and other platforms that trade in personal data.
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November 1, 2020 by APF Webmaster
How political parties legally harvest your data and use it to bombard you with election spam
Erica Mealy, Lecturer in Computer Science, University of the Sunshine Coast
On Monday October 26, five days ahead of Queensland’s election, many voters received an unsolicited text message from Clive Palmer’s mining company Mineralogy, accusing Labor of planning to introduce a “death tax” and providing a link to an online how-to-vote card for Palmer’s United Australia Party.
Many recipients angrily wondered how Palmer’s firm had got hold of their contact details, and why they were receiving information that had already been thoroughly debunked.
It’s not clear how many voters received the message, although Deputy Premier Steven Miles accused Palmer of sending it to “hundreds of thousands of Queenslanders”. The message was also sent to many permanent and interstate residents not eligible to vote in the election.
But the issue goes deeper than Palmer’s dubious tactics, although his message was a particularly egregious example. This and similar messages have been sent to voters outside the relevant electorate. For example, one message from an independent candidate for the electorate of Macalister was received by a resident of Stafford.
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F105 The state of healthcare digitalization in Australia (Louise Schaper, AIDH)
Australia was in the global digital health-related news in 2018 of the national EHR project called My Health Record. The idea behind the project was to digitize the medical records of all the people from Australia. Today, 9 out of 10 Australians have My Health Record.
Australia has a national digital health strategy, which predicts that by 2022 the essential, foundational elements of health information that can be safely accessed, easily utilized, and shared. According to dr. Louise Schaper, CEO of Australasian Institute of Digital Health, there's been a lot of government commitment to invest in digital health. When the strategy was written, the government established an organization called the National Health Transitional Authority, now called the Australian Digital Health Agency. “This is a government-funded organization whose sole responsibility is to advance digital health,” explains dr. Louise Schaper. Because the healthcare system in Australia relies heavily on community and health care consultation, the government put certain aspects of infrastructure in place. “We have a national identifier system in Australia. Every citizen that's getting health care has their own unique number just for that purpose. And then we also have another unique number that is for healthcare providers, as well. So that infrastructure is in place. That unique number can be used in whatever health IT systems that are being built and designed and implemented in healthcare.”
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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