Upgrades for myGov and My Health Record sites in budget’s $1.2 billion digital strategy
Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
The initiatives, to be announced by Scott Morrison on Thursday, include $200.1 million for myGov, which is the main portal for people to access government services on line.
Changes will make it easier for people to find services, from childcare providers to disaster support, as well as to manage payments and claims.
The government says the time saved by the enhancements will generate benefits across the economy worth an estimated $3.6 billion over a decade.
The package will put $301.8 million into what the government describes as the “next wave” of My Health Record, expanding the system, which has 23 million registered users. My Health Record contains summaries of people’s health information. It is managed by the Australian Digital Health Agency.
Some of this spending will assist the vaccination rollout, such as giving people alerts when vaccinations are due. There will be funds to help the move of aged care into a digital system that can link in with My Health Record to make safer and more efficient transitions between aged care and hospitals and other health facilities.
In other initiatives, $124.1 million will be provided to build Australia’s capability in Artificial Intelligence. This will include a National Artificial Intelligence Centre, to promote the adoption by business of AI technologies, supported by a network of AI and digital capability centres.
More than $100 million will go to boosting digital skills including a pilot program for work-based digital cadetships.
Business will benefit from investment incentives. There will be a digital games tax offset of 30% to help Australia obtain more of the $250 billion annual global video game development market.
The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association says Australia could generate a $1 billion games industry within a decade. In 2018-19, the Australian games sector earned $144 million.
Changes to the way businesses can claim depreciation on intangible assets such as intellectual property and in-house software, and help for small businesses to build digital capacity are also in the measures.
The government will invest $111.3 million to support the Consumer Data Right (CDR) rollout. The CDR helps consumers to compare and switch between products and services. This sharpens price and service competition between providers.
The $1.2 billion in spending on the digital strategy package is over six years.
Morrison said: “We need to keep our foot on the digital accelerator to secure our economic recovery from COVID-19”.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “Greater digital adoption will improve our competitiveness and lift our productivity – driving job creation and higher wages”.
In a pre-budget speech on Thursday opposition leader Anthony Albanese will distance himself from the big spending Labor proposed at the last election.
He will say money was tight when he was growing up and his mother taught him “the value of a dollar”.
“That’s why, when it comes to thinking about government spending, I am cautious”.
Republished with permission.
David.
12 comments:
Hmmm... the "next wave" of My Health Record
The long slow wave goodbye?
The government loves data, especially big data.
How about some big numbers that show just how accurate the projected savings the PCEHR/MyHR have actually been?
If there had been any, the government wouldn't need to fund an "expansion", it could self fund as well as return savings to the budget bottom line.
It looks as though the government is trying to fool all the people all the time.
Has anyone seen anything released by the government (as opposed to media reports) about the recent promise of MyHR funding?
Currently MyHR is only funded until the end of the 2021 financial year.
From what I can tell, all the government will fund is the continued operation of the My Health Record system for one more year. There's little chance that there will be scope for replacing Accenture or replatforming the thing.
The claim that there will be some sort of boost or that MyHR will be expanded/enhanced looks a bit shaky. Maybe a bit of navel gazing and the development of a few plans and intentions but little else.
Hardly a vote of confidence in the ADHA.
https://www.quotemaster.org/believing+a+liar#&gid=1&pid=10
@9:16AM Perhaps this 'must see' video will give you and all those sceptics, critics, naysayers, technical genii, who loiter here "a vote of confidence in the ADHA".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHo_3MrA5cA
@ May 07, 2021 12:37 PM
Oh dear, that really is about as authentic as a plastic fruit bowl. And not just the CEO speaking, half of not more of the footage, effects and stories have nothing to do with the digital health agency.
Is the suppose to be engaging or is it to help aged care facilitate afternoon naps?
The video has had 819 views since Mar 22, 2021
AuDigitalHealth has 1.25K subscribers
Preaching to the choir, skeptics and/or bots
I thought the CEO was very impressive and quite convincing to the general layperson and the average politician too busy to think much about what she is saying (reading off the prompter).
I think Bernard might be right about the funding. Is the $350 million new dollars or just the annual expenditure needed to keep ADHA ticking over? It's possible that a repeat of the same old, same old, story was wearing so thin as to be so politically unpalatable as to justify another $300+ million that the ADHA was told to come up with a 'new story' that sounded convincing if it wanted more money. Hard to tell until the budget papers are released.
Michelle Grattan seems to have bought the pitch in the Conversation. Strange that, because she is particularly astute and hard to con.
The trouble is people have been promising this stuff for many decades. Digital Health is all about accessing healthcare, not healthcare itself. It's like putting lipstick on a pig.
Not that Digital Health is going to make much difference in the Aged Care sector (in spite of ADHA claims) or the NDIS and they are mostly access problems.
The real benefits will come from what is called "digital intervention in healthcare".
It's probable that very few ADHA people know, or even want to know, the difference.
Life Matters on Radio National last Tuesday had a program in the series "Your Health 2030". This episode covered Big Data and AI.
This is the podcast:
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/your-health-2030-%E2%80%94-digital-disruption-and-health/13327470
They repeatedly used "digital intervention in healthcare", probably to differentiate themselves from the IT folks of Digital Health.
The video link at 12:37 PM presents the ADHA to the community and politicians as the "single source of truth" in regards to digital health.
Anything else and everyone else have been sidelined and rendered irrelevant and inconsequential and until they takes steps to effectively counter this "single source of truth" they will remain irrelevant.
I think the underlying issue is on display in this statement from Government - written by bureaucrats who most likely spend far to much time playing buzzword bingo
Government chartered repatriation flights to the Centre for National Resilience at Howard Springs
Centre for national resilience - give me a break
Whatever happened to Quarantine Centre at Howard Springs. Is it no longer politically correct to admit that people need to be quarantined?
G. Carter - it’s almost like a new season of mad as hell is pending and the pillows are jostling for a prime spot to have a Nicky taken out of them.
Post a Comment