Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Sunday, January 17, 2021

This Seemed Like Quite A Good Idea Until I Hit The Last Paragraph!

This appeared last week:

$24m ad campaign for COVID-19 aims to build consumer confidence

Australian Government details its proposed information and education national advertising campaign to support the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine

·         Nadia Cameron (CMO)

·         11 January, 2021 15:56

Building Australian consumer confidence lies at the heart of the Federal Government’s $24 million advertising campaign to support the rollout of the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccination program.

The national public education advertising and communication campaign was first revealed by Federal Government minister for health and aged care, Greg Hunt, in late December and is due to launch alongside the first rollout of free COVID-19 vaccines across the country.

Valued at $23.9 million, the ad campaign will see the Government work in partnership with states and medical experts to explain regulatory processes to help convince target priority groups to get vaccinated. It will also detail the timing and rollout to assist people to understand how the vaccines work so they’re clear on when and where they can receive the vaccine, Minister Hunt has stated.

The national advertising campaign will debut across a number of channels, including social media, as well as communication specifically for priority groups, culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) groups and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

According to Fairfax reports, priority groups more susceptible to false or misleading information around vaccines include women between 30 and 39 years of age. The media outlet has cited Department of Health research late last year which showed this demographic to be most likely to hold concerns about the vaccine’s safety.

A government spokesperson told CMO a specific committee has been established involving the CALD community to partner with them in ensuring the messages are appropriate and the right communication channels are used for the specific communities.

Speaking on the ad campaign this week, Federal chief medical officer, Paul Kelly, said the most crucial component of any vaccine rollout, not just COVID-19, is to ensure Australians are confident of the immunisation procedures being used and their importance. While Australia has a very high immunisation rate, throughout various communities, it’s vital to supply information that helps all of us to embrace the rapidly developed COVID-19 vaccine, he said.  

“The crucial component of that is confidence in the system, so we need to build confidence in this particular vaccine,” Kelly stated. “Of course, there has been a lot of interest and discussion about it. The approvals and such have gone fast, much faster than usual, for a reason - because of that danger that we are in and trying to get back to some sort of normal life.

…..

More than $40 million in funding is also being provided to streamline processes necessary to the approval and distribution of the vaccine and to ensure clinical information can be assessed in real time. According to the government, this funding for Services Australia, the Australian Digital Health Agency and Therapeutic Goods Administration will allow necessary enhancements aimed at reducing existing manual processes and improving digital integration across their respective systems.

Here is the link to the full article.

https://www.cmo.com.au/article/685473/24m-federal-government-ad-campaign-covid-19-aims-build-consumer-confidence/

So we have an article mentioning ‘consumer confidence’ and trust together with mentioning the ADHA, which is famous for destroying consumer trust and confidence with the #myHealthRecord opt-out transition!

Even worse they seem to be getting funds to update the #myHR (or some such other system) which is famous for being non-real time and incomplete! If ever there was an organisation not skilled at ‘streamlined processes’ it is the ADHA!

If the ADHA can run a Youtube channel which almost no views why not divert those funds to assist and stop wasting time and money!

Follow this link to see all the video hits starring the stethoscope wearing doc who is all over their communication!

https://www.youtube.com/c/AuDigitalHealth/videos

Looks to me like the ADHA is in a makework mode with our money while not delivering on what they say their major project – the useless, unloved and unused #myHR.

Time for an audit to see if they are offering the public value for money I reckon!

David

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm having a hard time connecting this up.

Dr David G More MB PhD said...

It's not hard. Not impressed with the ADHA spending money on promotional Youtube videos which are hardly watched and then being given extra funds to do work related to vaccine roll-out in which they are hardly expert!

They look like a rudderless ship to me!

D.

Sarah Conner said...

Agree with you, David, if it is a bunch of YouTube videos, then ADHA is not a good investment. As for process improvements etc. I struggle to see what beyond an FHiR API would-be needed from ADHA. That straightforward engineering exercise should be delivered out of existing budgets. Now is not the time to be throwing money away or sowing confusion through to many communicating too much. Messaging on COVID needs to be precise and targeted.

Rather than another placebo audit looking at questionable value, let's audit every project and trace its outputs. How many projects/contracts have delivered nothinv more than tumble-weeds and dust collecting door-stops. Who continuously gets engaged for work that never materialised into something useful, and why are they repeatedly engaged?

Beryl G said...

Wonder if government realises all of Tims communications and engagement teams were disbanded and ADHA really does not have a proven team to deliver national programs?

Anonymous said...

@beryl - probably not and I doubt anyone will notice. 1. They get little traffic to website, Twitter feeds or YouTube. 2. By the time they have worked out what to do and how to do it the pandemic will be over.