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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! Its pretty sad!
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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Social media corroding standards, says PM as he admonishes backbencher
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Mar 26, 2021 – 5.56pm
The Prime Minister Scott Morrison says that social media is corroding societal values as Labor demanded he sack backbencher Andrew Laming after the Queensland MP was exposed for harassing two female constituents, including on social media.
Mr Laming apologised in Parliament late on Thursday afternoon after learning the Nine Network was about to air the story, but Labor leader Anthony Albanese said that was not enough.
“I saw distraught people on TV last night who have suffered from trolling from a federal MP against his own constituents,” he said.
“Andrew Laming isn’t fit to continue as a Member of Parliament.
“And if the Liberal Party want to continue to associate themselves with him as what a federal public representative would be, then I’ll look forward to campaigning with the Labor candidate in that seat and sending a message, not just to Andrew Laming, but to the entire country that that sort of behaviour is completely unacceptable by removing Andrew Laming from the Parliament.”
Majority of respondents anticipate receiving vaccine in a survey by The CareSide
Roy Chiang | 24 Mar 2021
A study conducted in December 2020 by TheCareSide, a home healthcare provider in Australia, found that a majority of the respondents anticipated receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The survey saw 1122 Australians being interviewed to find out more about acceptance levels of the COVID-19 vaccine among the general public in Australia, with 69% of them interested in getting vaccinated.
“Our research suggests the country is in a strong position as the vaccines roll out. The overwhelming majority of Australians plan to get vaccinated and believe the national government has done a good job of managing the pandemic so far. This is good news for the whole country, but especially for the elderly and other vulnerable groups. The government's ongoing communication strategy will be critical to ensure that there's trust in the safety and efficacy of the vaccines,” said Gareth Mahon, CEO of CareSide.
WHY IT MATTERS
The elderly expressed the most interest in getting inoculated, with more than three out of four of them planning to do so. Young adults aged between 18 and 39 also demonstrated similar levels of interest, with 71% of them planning to receive the vaccine. For respondents aged 40-64 years old, the results indicated that only 57% of them wanted to receive the vaccine.
In addition to the Pfizer and Astra Zeneca vaccines which have been officially approved for use in Australia in February 2021, ten other vaccines have also been approved globally. Australia has also fared relatively well in comparison to the majority of other developed countries, with only 29,000 diagnosed cases and 900 deaths in total so far.
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Protecting women in the cloud: eSafety hopes the Online Safety Act will do just that
The commissioner said a lot of online abuse is rooted in misogyny and intended to silence women's voices. She hopes the new Online Safety Act will go some way to prevent such abuse.
By Asha Barbaschow | March 23, 2021 -- 23:03 GMT (10:03 AEDT) | Topic: Security
Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is hopeful the country's new Online Safety Act will go some way to protecting women and girls in the online world as people grapple with how to do exactly that in the offline world.
"You wouldn't be surprised that 70% of the reports of all forms of abuse that come into our office are from women and girls," Inman Grant told senators on Tuesday night. "That even applies to child sexual abuse where 90% of the perpetrators are men and 84% of the victims are girls.
"That applies to image-based abuse, that applies to youth-based cyberbullying, and certainly to adult cyber abuse."
There are a handful of programs Inman Grant said that "cover the continuum of women and the spectrum of harms". One receiving a lot of attention from her office is a program aiming to help women experiencing domestic and family violence.
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My Health Record National Provider Portal updates to support COVID-19 vaccination program
This latest update has introduced a new consolidated view of immunisation information that supports the Australian Government’s COVID-19 vaccination program.
The view includes:
· onscreen alert for the second COVID-19 vaccination due date (if the first vaccination has been given)
· Immunisation history from the Australian Immunisation Register and the individual’s record (currently available within shared health summaries and event summaries) that can be filtered by source.
This information will no longer be available in the Medicare Overview, but will instead be more easily located in the dedicated view within the National Provider Portal. If you are accessing My Health Record through a clinical information system, the immunisation information will still be available in the Medicare Overview. The consolidated immunisation view will be available through clinical information systems in the coming months. Further information and screenshots can be viewed in this presentation.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=25ed3236-4769-4b69-b22e-ae806ffebd88
Apple vs COVIDSafe app: a cautionary tale about health data
Gilbert + Tobin - Peter Waters
Australia March 25 2021
Digital transformation of healthcare is supposed to be the big positive outcome from the COVID-19 pandemic. While telehealth was clearly a valuable response, use of a video or telephone call between doctor and patient is at the lower end of the scale of digital technology.
Yet, over in the commercial space, thanks to our smart phones, tablets and (even) watches, the quality, reliability and accessibility of our own personal digital health data has never been so outstanding.
Why do governments face systemic problems with digital health data compared to the global tech providers?
What is digital health data?
Historically, ‘health data’ was limited in nature to the information manually collected during private interactions with medical professionals. Its use was confined to the institution’s four walls, meaning that access to data by another individual or institution was complicated.
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Technology as an enabler for better care: Digital transformation set to grow
25 March 2021
The COVID-19-inspired digital transformation of Australia’s aged care industry is set to accelerate following the release of recommendations from the Royal Commission into Quality and Safety.
The high-profile national inquiry’s final report last month highlighted the significant uptake in information technology processes required, calling for universal adoption of digital technology for personal or clinical care by mid-2022 with increased funding for home-based assistive technologies and real-time monitoring to follow.
The aged care sector is known to have significant opportunities to incorporate technology across care, with a recent report citing just one in three aged care organisations used holistic consumer records.
Rohling International’s CEO and Managing Partner Darren Gossling said technology could be harnessed to improve operations, efficiency, security and ultimately, care for residents and clients.
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https://www.health.gov.au/news/flood-information-and-support
Flood information and support
The floods affecting New South Wales and Queensland can also impact our health in many ways. Learn more on how you can access medical help you need, and what the Australian Government is doing to support your health during this time.
Date published: 25 March 2021
Type: News
Intended audience: General public
Telehealth and e-health support
The Australian Government has provided easier access to MBS telehealth items.
If you have been impacted by the floods, you don’t need to be a previous patient of your general practice to access telehealth support. Telehealth can help those who can’t access their health professional face-to-face including for electronic prescriptions.
Access to My Health Record is also available. There is essential health information to assist pharmacies during this emergency if people don’t have a prescription.
Disaster assistance
The Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment and Disaster Recovery Allowance supports those who have already suffered significant loss.
It provides a one-off financial assistance to eligible Australians affected by storms and floods. You can find more information on the Disaster Assist website.
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‘Yes or no?’: Congress fumes over Big Tech’s answers on misinformation
By Diane Bartz and Elizabeth Culliford
March 26, 2021 — 8.54am
Washington: In their first appearance before Congress since Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, the chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter were asked by US lawmakers whether their platforms bore some responsibility for the riot: “yes or no?”
Social media has been widely blamed for amplifying calls to violence and spreading misinformation that contributed to the January 6 attempt to violently overturn the election results.
Only Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey replied “yes” to the question, but said the “broader ecosystem” had to be taken into account. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet said the company always feels a sense of responsibility but it was a complex question.
Facebook Inc’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company was responsible for building “effective systems”. He also said that the rioters and former president Donald Trump should be held accountable.
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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214782921000191
Evaluating the quality and safety of health-related apps and e-tools: Adapting the Mobile App Rating Scale and developing a quality assurance protocol
Anna E.Roberts Tracey A.Davenport TobyWongHyei-Won MoonIan B.Hickie Haley M.LaMonica
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2021.100379Get rights and content
Highlights
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The adapted Mobile Application Rating Scale (A-MARS) is a reliable scale to evaluate the quality of health-related apps and e-tools.
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Important considerations include evidence of effectiveness as well as goal setting strategies and interoperability.
•
The A-MARS is appropriate for use by health professionals; however, they may require support from a digital navigator.
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https://www.itwire.com/business-it-news/data/80-of-anz-cyber-attack-victims-lost-data-survey.html
Thursday, 25 March 2021 10:56
80% of ANZ cyber attack victims lost data: survey
Research carried out by Tech Research Asia for data management specialist Commvault found that 60% of companies surveyed had experienced at least one cyber attack in the last 12 months, and of those, 80% lost data as a result.
Commvault area vice president for ANZ David Rajkovic told iTWire "As Australia and New Zealand organisations continue to evolve into hybrid workplace operations, massive amounts of data is being generated across every business function.
"This data sprawl, is a business-critical problem, especially in the light of the current challenging cybersecurity landscape – robust data management and strict controls on the data environment can help avoid breaches.
"Unfortunately, 60 per cent of the companies we spoke to have experienced some form of a cyberattack over the last 12 months. 80% of those attacked lost data as a result. Firms need to think beyond backup, be proactive and shift to a recovery-ready state so that when an attack occurs, compromised data is 100% recoverable."
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https://wildhealth.net.au/aidh-chair-bettina-mcmahon-on-the-future-of-digital-health/
25 March 2021
AIDH chair Bettina McMahon on the future of digital health
In November, Bettina McMahon took over as chair of the Australian Institute of Digital Health, the peak body for digital health which has about 2,000 members, including individual health tech leaders, corporations and healthcare organisations.
Ms McMahon, the former chief operating officer and interim CEO of the Australian Digital Health Agency, shares her views on where the industry is heading.
Building an evidence-based business case
Along with advocacy work, a key priority for the Institute is providing evidence-based advice. For example, corporates need to be able to attribute specific benefit to a digital initiative to make their business case, but that often proves difficult.
“The big gap is benefits realisation,” Ms McMahon says. “Really pinning down that ROI and putting a dollar value on it has been called out by many of our members as problematic.”
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https://www.seek.com.au/job/51849689?type=standout
Senior Solution Architect
Australian Digital Health Agency
About the Agency
The Australian Digital Health Agency is responsible for national digital health services and systems, with a focus on engagement, innovation and clinical quality and safety. Our focus is on putting data and technology safely to work for patients, consumers and the healthcare professionals who look after them.
About the Role
Reporting to the Director, Enterprise Architecture in the Architecture, Informatics and Product Ownership Branch, this position is required to provide technical leadership and guidance, translate business requirements from different stakeholders into technical solution and maintain the integrity of business critical systems and proactively drive/guide the agreed deliverables of the end to end solution.
As part of the Enterprise Architecture Section at the Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency), the role of the Senior Solution Architect is to support the Agency’s roadmap and strategy for all the Agency’s products and services, as well as adhering to architectural standards, presenting solutions and providing review and assurance of solutions.
Key accountabilities include;
- Supporting the Director, Enterprise Architecture and Principal Architects in the development of the end-to-end solution architecture and design for IT projects or initiatives based on business and/or functional requirements in accordance with standards and guidelines.
- Review and ensure solution designs conform to end-to-end interoperability in accordance with Agency standards, framework, roadmap and principles.
- Architectural governance role during the delivery, providing technical leadership for solution designers and development teams.
- Leading in the analysis of current state system analysis for large and complex solutions producing the appropriate documentation and artefacts in meaningful representations to benefit target state roadmaps and solution design.
- Leading in the analysis and development of transition state (gap analysis) solution options.
- Leading the process of capturing and translating business requirements into system specifications.
- Produce cross functional workflows and sequence diagrams of key system components.
- Contributing to the process of business process design, case design, and information design and modelling.
- Contribute to the content of internal and external communications.
- Contribute to the identification, coordination and management of test cases.
- Supporting the analysis of business operations
- Follow all Agency policies, procedures and instructions and take reasonable care for your own health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace.
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Technology
Australian Minister’s Phone Hacked as Report Reveals Hong Kong Link
By Jason Scott and Jamie Tarabay
25 March 2021, 10:14 am AEDT
A second senior Australian government minister has revealed his mobile phone was hacked through the Telegram messaging app, with a media report saying the phishing scam was aimed at revealing contact details of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong.
Health Minister Greg Hunt’s office said in an emailed statement on Thursday that “a cyber security attempt to impersonate the minister has been referred to the Australian Federal Police and investigations are underway.” That follows Monday’s statement by Finance Minister Simon Birmingham that he had been targeted.
The Australian newspaper reported late Wednesday that the details of pro-democracy Hong Kongers were provided to someone impersonating Birmingham, with one of the recipients being asked: “Do you have any contacts in Hong Kong?”
The person handed over details of Hong Kongers without realizing they were speaking to a cyber-hacker, the paper said, citing the person who it didn’t identify.
Birmingham told a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday that the hacker had gained access to contacts in his government phone who had the Telegram app. He said there was also another request from the person pretending to be the minister asking for money to be transferred to a bank account outside Australia.
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US attorneys says anti-vaccination groups have 59m followers on social platforms
Reuters
Attorneys general for 12 US states on Wednesday accused Facebook and Twitter of doing too little to stop people from using their platforms to spread false information that coronavirus vaccines are unsafe.
In a letter to Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the Democratic attorneys general said “anti-vaxxers” lacking medical expertise and often motivated by financial gain have used the platforms to downplay the danger of COVID-19 and exaggerate the risks of vaccination.
They called on both companies to enforce their own community guidelines by removing or flagging vaccine misinformation.
The letter said anti-vaxxers control 65 per cent of public anti-vaccine content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and have more than 59 million followers on those platforms and Google’s YouTube.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/how-ai-could-warn-of-mental-health-relapse/42526
24 March 2021
How AI could warn of mental health relapse
Clinical Mental Health Psychiatry Technology
Posted by Lydia Hales
A new AI tool finds red flags in general practice patient data for those at risk of a severe mental health episode – before it’s too late.
This big data approach could help GPs intervene before patients silently drop out of care, and then relapse.
Developed by Adelaide-based researchers, the AI2 software sifted MBS and PBS data to flag patients prescribed antipsychotics who were at increased risk of non-adherence or disengagement with health services, leading to interventions for roughly 10% of the cohort.
“The technology may assist clinicians and services to detect non-adherence behaviour early, thereby triggering interventions that have the potential to reduce rates of mental health deterioration and acute illness relapse,” they wrote in Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.
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https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/advance-care-plans-on-my-health-record-a-step-in-t
Advance care plans on My Health Record ‘a step in the right direction’
What are the benefits of linking advance care planning documents with My Health Record?
Morgan Liotta ADHA Propaganda
24 Mar 2021
One of the
challenges of advance care planning is ensuring that an up-to-date copy of
relevant documents, such as advance care directives, are accessible to the
treating doctors.
This is according to Associate Professor Joel Rhee, Chair of RACGP Specific
Interests Cancer and Palliative Care. But better linkage with My Health Record
could be a solution.
‘Advance care planning documents placed in the My Health Record will improve
[patients’] accessibility to acute care clinicians and other health
professionals at the time of need when important clinical decisions need to be
made,’ he told newsGP.
‘Enabling patients to personally upload these documents into My Health Record
has been a step in the right direction.’
To mark National
Advance Care Planning Week (22–26 March), the Australian Digital Health
Agency (ADHA) has released a new set of national
guidelines to assist healthcare providers in supporting patients wishing to
add advance care planning documents to their My Health Record.
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The rock star health programs making a big impact
Healthcare innovations designed to assist the ten million Australians managing chronic physical conditions are often only available to small sectors of the population and would save the health system billions if brought to the wider public, a new report has found.
A report by the Productivity Commission detailing the dozens of pioneering health projects making a positive impact shows that these programs have the potential to change the lives of millions, as the number of people living with chronic conditions edges closer to 40 per cent.
A program that sends friendly texts to participants to remind them to take their medication, a service running group and one-on-one sessions with people living with chronic pain and a clinic that travels to remote areas to support hepatitis B sufferers, were among the programs examined in the report.
Productivity commissioner Richard Spencer said chronic health conditions – that costs the health system about $38 billion annually – affected a growing sector of the population, with Australia ranking eighth in the world for life expectancy but third for time spent in poor health.
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https://www.gilmorehealth.com/how-australia-implemented-e-prescribing-to-service-its-remote-areas/
How Australia Implemented E-Prescribing to Service Its Remote Areas
Dr. Sony Sherpa | Published
on March 23, 2021
Gilmore Health
The world of science and technology is constantly changing and evolving, always for the better. The purpose of this change is to improve the quality of care and make the entire process more efficient.
E-prescribing (electronic prescribing) is an example of such evolution. It focuses on digitalizing the prescription process to increase patient safety and improve the workflow. E-prescription basically refers to the immediate filling of a prescription in the pharmacy after the doctor writes the prescription onto a digital device and puts it in the system.
The service was initiated in 2003, and it was recently adopted by the Australian government as a part of the Australian Government Budget Measure. This alteration will still allow the patients to choose the pharmacy they would like to pick up their prescriptions from. It just reduces the need for paper prescriptions although they are still available if the prescriber or the patient chooses to opt for them.
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23 March 2021
Why Telstra buying MedicalDirector might be good for general practice
One of the big tech trends brought upon us by COVID-19 is the willingness of government, private health and corporates to embrace cloud-based technology to achieve interoperability in healthcare at scale.
As an example, HealthDirect employed technology from cloud-based patient management software (PMS) vendor MediRecords early in COVID to achieve a nationwide scalable clinical notes and tele operator prioritisation solution for its contract workforce of COVID help line workers, within one week. MediRecords was also used to solve a state wide solution to payments for specialists working in all public hospitals in Queensland.
MediRecords and other specialist cloud-based operators are attracting a lot of interest from players who are large, want scale quickly, want seamless interoperability in a contained solution, and are happy to bypass most of the hassle of trying to connect to the older server-based world. They are also rapidly acquiring contracts with innovative new start ups offering disruptive new ways to deliver care, again, around the core primary care market.
Technology wise, GPs live in an old server-based world, mainly via Best Practice and MedicalDirector desktop implementations. Each of these major PMS vendors are still primarily architected on old server-based technology.
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https://www.miragenews.com/advance-personal-planning-is-your-voice-532038/
March 22, 2021 4:55 pm AEDT
Advance Personal Planning is your voice
It is National Advance Care Planning Week (22 – 26 March) and Territory Palliative Care is encouraging Territorians to learn more about advance personal planning.
Advance personal planning gives people the opportunity to plan for what you do, or don’t, want if you become unable to make or communicate your own preferences.
Territory Palliative Care Occupational Therapist Julie Rankin from the Top End Health Service said advance personal planning was an on-going process of shared planning for current and future health care.
“Advance personal planning helps to ensure that a person’s preferences, beliefs and values about health care are known and respected if they are too unwell to speak for themselves. It also benefits those who are close to them,” said Ms Rankin.
“Research has shown that families of people who have done advance personal planning have less anxiety and stress when asked to make important healthcare decisions for other people”.
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SingularityU Australia summit showcases ‘good tech’
A gym for stroke patients and maps for the visually impaired are among technologies to be showcased at this year’s SingularityU Australia summit.
The organisation is holding its second annual summit on Tuesday and Wednesday, a return after the cancellation of last year’s event due to the pandemic.
Co-CEO Christina Gerakiteys says the summit showcases the good applications of technology, and the entrepreneurs behind it. “We hear a lot about tech being used for not so wonderful purposes,” she says.
“My response to that is it‘s not the technology that causes the harm, it’s the humans behind the technology. If we can create a more humane society, we’re going to have less people that will use tech for not so good purposes.”
Some of this tech is on display.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/facebook-takes-down-13-billion-fake-accounts-562467
Facebook takes down 1.3 billion fake accounts
By Staff Writer on Mar 23, 2021 6:44AM
In three months.
Facebook took down 1.3 billion fake accounts between October and December and had over 35,000 people working on tackling misinformation on its platform.
The company also removed more than 12 million pieces of content about Covid-19 and vaccines that global health experts flagged as misinformation, it said in a blog post.
False claims and conspiracies about the coronavirus vaccines have proliferated on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter during the pandemic.
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https://www.itwire.com/open-sauce/after-all-the-headlines,-whatever-happened-to-them-vaccines.html
Authors Opinion
Monday, 22 March 2021 12:26
After all the headlines, whatever happened to them vaccines?
Despite the blaring headlines that six million more Australians are eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine from today (Monday), this does not mean they can get themselves vaccinated.
The common theme among clinics which are certified to provide the vaccination is that there is no stock available.
One can only join a waiting list when one tries to get an appointment. Then the institution in question pledges to inform the person concerned when vaccine stock lands, and at that stage a booking can be made.
When that will happen is anybody's guess. And in case you think I am pulling your leg, dear reader, this is from my personal experience.
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Trump planning to launch his own social media platform, adviser tells Fox News
By Andrea Shalal
March 22, 2021 — 5.23am
Former US President Donald Trump, suspended from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, plans to launch his own platform in two to three months, one of his senior advisers told Fox News on Sunday.
Jason Miller, a spokesman for Trump’s 2020 campaign, told the network that Trump would re-enter the social media space with a new platform of his own that would “completely redefine the game.”
“This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media,” he said on Fox News’ Media Buzz program.
“Everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does, but it will be his own platform,” he added.
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https://www.miragenews.com/good-things-happening-to-support-digital-health-531756/
March 22, 2021 8:16 am AEDT
Good things happening to support digital health literacy
Australian Digital Health Agency ADHA Propaganda
A digital health literacy initiative funded by the Australian Digital Health Agency last year is reaping significant rewards and helping bridge the digital divide that precludes many Australians accessing improved health services.
Last year, 71 community organisations across Australia were selected by the Good Things Foundation to teach digital health literacy skills through the Health My Way program and improve digital inclusion.
Good Things Foundation is a social change charity that supports people to improve their lives through the use of technology and builds understanding and skills to allow Australians to realise the benefits of the evolving digital health system.
The Foundation trained and resourced 232 digital health mentors from the funded community organisations to deliver the project. Eighty per cent of participants in the pilot said their digital health literacy skills and confidence had increased.
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https://apo.org.au/node/311494
Securing a positive health care technology legacy from COVID-19
16 Mar 2021
Tim Horton, Tom Hardie, Shakira Mahadeva, Will Warburton
Publisher
Health services planning Digital transformation Health services accessibility National Health Service (NHS) Medical technology Primary health care United Kingdom
Resources
Securing a positive health care technology legacy from COVID-19
Description
Over the past year, the NHS has been through an extraordinary period of challenge and change. At the forefront of this has been the incredible effort and commitment shown by those in the health service in dealing with the impact of COVID-19. Also significant is the way services have had to rapidly adapt to the new reality of delivering health care in a pandemic.
Key points:
- During the pandemic, there has been increased NHS use of both established and newer technologies to reduce face-to-face contact and manage demand.
- While technologies were rolled out with impressive speed, some aspects of implementation – such as evaluation, co-design and customisation – will necessarily have been shortcut, and will need revisiting after the emergency phase of the pandemic is over.
- Among members of the public and NHS staff who reported increased use of technology, the overwhelming majority said they had positive experiences – impressive given the severe pressure on the NHS.
- Through a refresh of the NHS Long Term Plan and other national strategies, policymakers will need to support front-line teams to revisit aspects of implementation and 'reorient' technology-based interventions to serve longer term quality and productivity objectives. Central to this will be evaluating their impact on care quality and developing a vision of ‘what good looks like’.
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https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2021/9/covid-19-vax-rollout-immunisation-register-update-vital/
COVID-19 vax rollout: immunisation register update vital
Authored by Sarah Colyer
URGENT updates to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) are needed to optimise Australia’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout and ensure vulnerable patient groups are accessing recommended vaccines, experts say.
Under new legislation, all COVID-19 vaccines and seasonal influenza vaccines administered must be reported to the AIR. In addition, all other vaccines given under the National Immunisation Program (NIP) must be reported to the AIR from 1 July 2021.
However, experts say data in the register fall far short of what is required to evaluate the success of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and other immunisation programs in specific medically at-risk populations.
In a Perspective in the MJA, Dr Jane Tuckerman of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, together with leading clinicians, says there is an “urgent need to have the ability to identify individuals with risk factors such as pregnancy or medically at-risk status”.
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https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2021/9/medication-errors-weve-all-made-them/
Medication errors: we’ve all made them
Authored by Aditi Halder
“My mother has been rather confused and drowsy the last few days, is something wrong?” The junior doctor opened the chart. Not only was the hydromorphone charted as regular instead of pro re nata, but the decimal point was clearly misplaced, at a position reserved for the dose of the more commonly prescribed drug, morphine.
THE above situation would be infrequent, but not unheard of in almost any Australian hospital. Despite widespread introduction of electronic prescribing systems, the presence of pharmacists, and the careful checking by nurses, medication errors are still a feature of morbidity and mortality meetings in health care facilities.
Despite all our training, the “five rights” of medication administration – the right patient, the right drug, the right route, the right dose, and the right time – are not always fulfilled.
Patient safety became a national headline recently, with a case of a doctor inadvertently administering four times the recommended dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to two elderly patients in a nursing home. At the time, Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly pointed out that in the early clinical trials of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, experiments were conducted with different doses, including four times higher than what was eventually prescribed.
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Can intelligent automation reduce errors in the healthcare sector?
By Greg Eyre
Vice President, ANZ Blue Prism
Thursday, 18 March, 2021
By automating processes and streamlining clinical pathways, intelligent automation can empower the healthcare industry to provide better patient care.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems worldwide have been tested and placed under enormous strain. While in Australia, we’ve been extremely fortunate to avoid the devastating scenes of inundated hospitals in Europe, the pandemic has heightened the risk of overwhelming our health system in a much less visible way.
A combination of factors, such as the sudden flux in testing volume, the additional burden placed on healthcare workers, the introduction of new protocols and more, means medical errors pose a greater risk than ever before. Aside from the dangerous health-based implications of these errors, we must also consider the emotional impact on patients involved, as well as the legal liabilities that may also ensue.
The gravity of this kind of error has already been realised, with England making headlines after a technical glitch caused almost 16,000 COVID-19 cases to go unreported. Had a similar thing happened over the past week in Victoria with the Holiday Inn cluster, would the state have faced a third wave?
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Prime Minister's department among agencies to fail cyber security audit
By Justin Hendry on Mar 22, 2021 7:04AM
"Vulnerable" to attack without missing Top Four control.
Some of the federal government’s most powerful departments are among those still failing to fully implement mandatory cyber security controls, leaving them “vulnerable” to attack, the national auditor has revealed.
A handful of agencies are also continuing to assess themselves incorrectly against the government’s protective security policy framework (PSPF), raising further concerns about the usefulness of self-assessments.
In its latest cyber resilience review released on Friday [pdf], the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found none of the seven agencies it inspected had “fully implemented all the mandatory Top Four mitigation strategies”.
The audit looked at the Attorney-General’s Department (AGD); Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C); Department of Health; Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE); Future Fund Management Agency; IP Australia; and Austrade.
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https://ahra.org.au/our-work/data-driven-healthcare-improvement/
Data-Driven Healthcare Improvement
Modern health services collect and generate enormous amounts of data, much of which has the potential to contribute to the improvement of patient care and their health outcomes.
But data alone does not result in change. An integrated approach is vital to enable the use of data to improve healthcare delivery.
Work under this Initiative is split into three areas:
Learning Health Systems
The Australian Health Research Alliance has prioritised the development of virtual or actual data hubs which bring together academic, clinical and industry stakeholders to create a Learning Health System (LHS).
In December 2020, AHRA received $1.9 million from the Medical Research Future Fund to test whether new technology can improve access to the electronic medical records (eMRs) of patients, and use the information to improve health outcomes and health service responsiveness and delivery during a crisis such as COVID-19.
Led by Monash Partners, the project brings together several members of the AHRA, along with Alfred Health, Monash University, the National Centre of Health Ageing (Peninsula Health), Outcome Health, King’s College London, the Australian Digital Health Agency, Digital Health CRC and Safer Care Victoria.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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