This interesting insight into the data in the Shared Health Summaries appeared a few days ago.
More than 20% of MHR shared health summary data is likely garbage
A Department of Health audit of GP uploaded shared health summaries reveals that the state of My Health Record data integrity may be a lot worse than people think
Earlier this month the Department of Health (DoH) took its new data matching powers out for its first test drive in the form of an audit of all GP practices which upload shared health summaries to the My Health Record (MHR) as part of the ePIP, and what it found wasn’t pretty.
1106 practices which were paid ePiP last quarter ended up being denied the payment this quarter after DoH data matched records with the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) and found that these practices had “not met the shared health summary upload requirements for a payment quarter under the Practice Incentives Program eHealth Incentive (ePIP)”. Overall, about 5300 practices are uploading summaries.
The good news is that the department has provided quite a bit of information for those practices which have missed out this quarter on what to do to make sure they get in line for next quarter, so the problem is likely to go away over time for those practices affected. If you’re interested in that detail you can start HERE.
The bad news is that ePIP to incentivise shared health summary uploading by GP practices has been running for a few years now and this is the first time a detailed check has been made of the integrity of the data GPs have been uploading.
Depending on how the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) has been treating the summaries that are not up to standard in the past, that might mean that up to 20% of all the shared health summary data in the MHR database is garbage. It could be more or less than 20% depending on the profile – primarily how many GPs they have – of the 1106 practices who failed to upload proper data.
Wild Health asked the ADHA to clarify what they’ve been doing with the tainted data until now and to confirm if the up to 20% of this important data set in the MHR is tainted, but their media department has not gotten back to us yet. We will update you if they do.
It seems unlikely however that the ADHA had itself identified this problem prior to the audit, as if it had it surely would have reported so much poor data to the DoH before this audit.
This likely means that for several years now at least 20% of the shared health summary data set, and perhaps a lot more, given the issues that GPs have had in getting going on the uploads, is tainted and unusable.
One question that should be on the minds of the ADHA and the DoH is that if this tainted data is still sitting inside the MHR shared health summary data set, does that represent any potential issues of patient safety?
We have put some further questions to the department asking it to detail some of the reasons GP practices had not met “the requirements”.
It doesn’t seem to be that they failed to upload the minimum number of summaries required as the system rejects a practice straight away if the required number of the summaries aren’t uploaded.
It seems like it is something the department has managed to audit within the summary data itself. It should be interesting to find out what constitutes some of the fails. Are some of the summaries dummy summaries or automated summaries which aren’t loading real or meaningful data?
We’ll get back to you if and when we find out.
Much more here:
https://wildhealth.net.au/more-than-20-of-mhr-shared-health-summary-data-is-likely-garbage/
To me the key issue is that the vast majority of GPs have no interest in the quality of the data uploaded as they have no intention of using the data for their patients and would only be uploading the minimum amount of information to get the really substantial ePIP payments.
The data the GP has an interest in maintaining and keeping current is the data they use for the management of their patients day to day and this is what they hold in their local practice management systems.
The fundamental flaw in the design of the #myHealthRecord is that it is not what lives in the systems clinicians use to manage their patients but typically an incomplete, out of date, partial copy of that information.
This disastrous and fundamental flaw ensures that most clinicians will neither use or trust the #myHealthRecord and why it is an unsafe source of information.
This flaw has existed since the original PCEHR design and has never been faced up to and addressed – possibly, I suspect, because the ADHA simply can’t face the fact that they have spent billions of dollars on a fundamentally ill designed and intrinsically unsafe system!
David.
7 comments:
If "More than 20% of MHR shared health summary data is likely garbage" then the whole thing is totally unreliable.
If a GP has to spend time validating the data in a patient's MyHR then they are better off ignoring it and doing what they have always done. Take a history and test, test, test.
Let’s not forget little unresolved gems like this - https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/25/my-health-record-government-warned-of-significant-patient-data-glitch
How ADHA data could be relied on to check for fraud is highly questionable. I am not that impressed GP Practices are being targeted by the government. We should be treating healthcare workers with far more respect and remuneration than the government is.
Little things like integrity are irrelevant. ADHA and, more importantly, the MyHR is now under the management of Services Australia. Most of the budget is to support that transition and close down ADHA. The Government will continue to frustrate through DigitalhealthCRC, Healthdirect Australia. The department will continue to pay-for-servitude to the usual suspects drawing on the AIDH, CHF and other peak bodies and colleges.
This blog remains a thorn.
@7:12 AM "ADHA, and more importantly the MyHR, is now under the management of Services Australia."
Ms Cattermole would therefore be the "seamless management connection".
Politically it is an acceptable path for quietly smothering the greatest government stuff-up in digital health ever in Australia under the bureaucratic doona.
Then, discontinue the marketing publicity, and instruct PHN's to remove any mention of MyHR on their web sites. Then close down the Advisory Committees, cancel the joint Federal / State finance agreement and terminate the Board.
Job done, problem solved, everythind disappears in a cloud of .... 'poof'!
If the scenario plays out as predicted, it will be interesting to see if anyone notices and/or complains. None of the vendors or consultants will complain because they want future business.
Patients who want their data will be told to ask their GP, after all they are the ones with the data anyway.
@9:20 AM & 11:13 AM Exactly. It pretty much mirrors a similar 'exercises' I undertook undercover a few decades ago for a state government. There was a bit of dust for a short while, then everything went quiet, people lost interest and moved on. The taxpayer was saved further expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars (in today's money billions). It will barely cause a ripple and the public won't even notice!
To ADHA Staffer:
What do you think will be the first concrete signs that your scenario is actually playing out?
Thanks
David.
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