Here are a few I have come across the last week or so. Note: Each link is followed by a title and a few paragraphs. For the full article click on the link above title of the article. Note also that full access to some links may require site registration or subscription payment.
General Comment
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It seems there is some trouble brewing in Far North Qld with a long running program that some, t least, are not happy with. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Otherwise we seem to be having more frequent major glitches in systems operated by pretty much everyone!
In many States we are having some trust issues with access to data that Governments said would go anywhere. Very naughty!
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Doctors refusing to use $35m electronic medical record system because of ‘safety risks’
Matthew Newton, The Cairns Post
June 16, 2021 5:00am
A NEW $35m electronic record system intended to make life easier for health workers in rural and remote sites across Far North Queensland is so bad that some clinicians are refusing to use it.
The intention of the RIVeR program was to create a single electronic patient medical record system accessible in 58 primary, community and hospital settings from the Torres Strait to the Cassowary Coast.
Now eight months into the rollout across 28 sites, Together Queensland senior vice president Dr Sandy Donald said some doctors had stopped using RIVeR because it created “substantial safety risks”.
Both the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union and the Together Queensland union have written to Queensland Health outlining their concerns with the program, which took five years to develop.
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FNQ doc says they are resigning over rollout of $35m eHealth medical record project
Matthew Newton, The Cairns Post
June 18, 2021 5:00am
A FAR North doctor with 10 years under their belt at a health care clinic said they were resigning because of the “distressing” impact of a new Queensland Health electronic medical record that cost $35m.
The Cairns Post has obtained a copy of an internal Queensland Health survey of 27 medical officers using RIVeR, the multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded program designed to provide a single electronic medical record across primary, community and hospital health care settings from the Torres Strait to the Cassowary Coast.
Responses to all questions in the April survey included more than 20 comments voicing concerns regarding “patient harm, and clinical/medico-legal risk”.
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‘Widespread impact’: Banks back online after nationwide tech outage
By Charlotte Grieve and Tim Biggs
Updated June 17, 2021 — 6.53pmfirst published at 3.32pm
Millions of Australians were unable to access internet banking services after a major outage at a little-known technology company hit a number of large Australian companies, causing websites to crash and digital services to be cut.
Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ services were all disrupted for over an hour on Thursday afternoon, as were smaller lenders, including Macquarie Bank and ME Bank. However, NAB was unaffected by the outage, which prevented customers from access online banking accounts.
CBA said it was “urgently investigating” the outage in a post to Twitter at 3pm and apologised to customers, many of whom used social media to complain about being unable to make purchases, transfer money or access accounts.
“Still unable to buy my groceries because I can’t access my money,” one customer said.
About one hour later, CBA said services were starting to “return to normal following a tech outage that had widespread impact across businesses”.
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Bank outage could be an unavoidable symptom of life in the cloud
By Tim Biggs
June 18, 2021 — 11.15am
Web services company Akamai has apologised for a widespread outage that saw many Australian banks disappear from the internet briefly on Thursday, though such availability blips are likely to be the norm as more services become reliant on a small number of cloud giants.
The issue occurred around 2.20pm, and by 3pm many bank customers were taking to Twitter to report that sites and mobile apps were down. This included ANZ, CBA, Westpac, AMP, Macquarie, ME Bank and more. Many were restored by 4pm, though some services didn’t return until almost 7pm.
Akamai posted a very brief explanation and apology overnight, saying the issue stemmed from a problem with its Prolexic service, which protects customers from a kind of cyber attack called distributed denial of service, or DDoS. A routing error in the service impacted around 500 of Akamai’s customers, ironically resulting in an effect similar to that of a DDoS attack itself; the sites were totally inaccessible.
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Akamai ‘sorry’ for mass outage
June 18, 2021
Internet infrastructure provider Akamai has apologised for a massive outage that affected Australian banking apps and other services on Thursday, with the company declaring a cyber attack was not to blame for the glitch.
The outage, which affected the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac and ANZ apps as well as some of their Eftpos terminals, along with Virgin Australia and Australia Post, began at 2.20pm (AEST), Akamai said in a post-incident report.
The Commonwealth Bank said in a statement its issues had been resolved as of Friday morning.
Westpac and ANZ were yet to respond to requests for comment.
In the US, American, Delta, United and Southwest airlines were among those affected, but the issue was more prolonged in Australia.
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https://www.channelnews.com.au/union-warns-govt-it-services-to-fail-on-skills-shortage/
Union Warns Govt IT Services To Fail On Skills Shortage
By Computer Daily News| 18 Jun 2021
An organisation covering science, IT and engineering professionals has warned high-profile federal government service failures will continue unless the skills shortage in the Australian public service is addressed.
Professionals Australia (PA) cited the much-maligned COVIDsafe app, robodebt, CensusFail and 2.5 million Australians opting out of the My Health Record following 42 separate data breaches, among the failures.
The union, which refers to its structure as a network covering 25,000 members, is calling for a separate classification structure for technical and specialist skills to be formalised across the public service.
PA urged the changes in a submission to the current Australian Public Service hierarchy and classification review which stems from the David Thodey capability review in 2019.
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https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/how-does-australia-s-new-digital-vaccination-certi
How does Australia’s new digital vaccination certificate work?
People who have received both doses of AstraZeneca or Pfizer can now access digital proof that they are fully vaccinated against COVID.
14 Jun 2021
It seems even a COVID outbreak can have a silver lining,
with Melbourne’s fourth lockdown acting as a key motivator in people around
Australia getting vaccinated.
According to the ABC
vaccine tracker, Victoria’s daily vaccinations have more than tripled –
with nearly 25,000 doses a day being administered at state-run clinics,
hospitals and vaccination hubs – since the state went back into lockdown on 27
May.
Daily vaccinations in New South Wales have seen similar jump, from roughly 3500
on 10 May to 11,500 on 6 June.
Overall, Australia has now delivered 5,850,000 doses of COVID vaccine, with a
current pace of roughly 774,000 doses a week.
And with more than 600,000 Australians having received two doses of vaccine,
people are wondering when – and how – that status of being fully vaccinated
against COVID will translate to greater levels of freedom.
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Roche Australia joins ANDHealth to drive growth of digital health sector
June 18, 2021
ANDHealth today announced that Roche Australia – a world leader in innovation and research-focused healthcare – has joined ANDHealth’s cooperative digital health commercialisation initiative as a Corporate Member to support the development and growth of Australia’s local digital health ecosystem.
Australia’s decades-long policy of supporting innovation, significant investment into digital health infrastructure, and successful management of the COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented opportunity to deliver a robust, sustainable digital health industry. The industry however is hampered by commercialisation challenges including access to capital, customers, and expertise. ANDHealth’s partnership with Roche will provide Australian digital health entrepreneurs and innovators with access to world-class skills and expertise to meet these challenges.
“The partnership with Roche is a key milestone in enabling us to achieve our vision of creating a world-leading, integrated ecosystem for the development, commercialisation and implementation of evidence-based digital health technologies in Australia,” says ANDHealth CEO, Bronwyn Le Grice.
“The relationship between our two organisations further strengthens the ANDHealth model of support for the growth and maturation of Australia’s digital health industry – growth that will deliver highly skilled jobs, create economic opportunity and deliver better health outcomes for all Australians,” she said.
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New augmented reality technology guides spine neurosurgeon to success
Surgeons now using advanced x-ray technology which gives them "superpowers" when performing complicated procedures.
June 18, 2021 — 3.45pm
Video.
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Telstra mulling e-health play with Medical Director
Telstra is believed to be firming as the favourite to win the contest to buy Affinity Equity Partners’ Medical Director business, according to sources.
It comes as the third sales process for Everlight Radiology also ramps up after Pacific Equity Partners walked away from a deal to buy the business.
Medical Director has been on and off the market through advisory firm Jefferies Australia since 2019 but the understanding has been that the sales process started ramping up again around April, as revealed at the time by DataRoom.
Covid-19 is thought to have held up plans for a divestment.
Telstra has been keen to bulk up its e-health business due to the booming demand for services and this column revealed Telstra’s interest in November last year.
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From telehealth to holograms: the future of work and visiting the doctor is here
All great battles advance technology, and the global fight against Covid-19 is no exception. But the pace of change the pandemic has forced is making us go boldly where no one has gone before.
Eighteen months ago, if you mentioned ditching the commute to instead hologram into the office, you would have been likely dismissed as a futurist quack by many. And yet, it is now being considered a viable alternative to combat Zoom fatigue.
Similarly the concept of visiting a doctor or allied health professional, such as a physiotherapist or speech therapist, digitally or via teleconference was viewed as being more in the domain of helpline services.
But Australians have embraced medical telehealth consults, just as employers have fostered remote and flexible working through Zoom and other video conferencing platforms – and now potentially holograms.
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Ex-investment banker scores $11m after quitting to start a tech firm
Yolanda Redrup Reporter
Jun 14, 2021 – 10.05am
A former Citi investment banker who gave up his corporate career to become a doctor, but instead tried his hand at entrepreneurship, has raised almost $11 million for his AI-enabled telehealth start-up, which gives people access to prescriptions quickly.
Launched by Dr Asher Freilich in late 2018, InstantScripts offers patients two options to conduct the appointments necessary to get a prescription remotely.
The first is to engage via an express digital service for $15, which involves answering a set of questions generated by an AI bot, with the answers reviewed via text by a doctor, while the second is to pay $40 for a telehealth consultation with one of its 30 doctors in Australia.
In less than three years, the business has served more than 300,000 patients and has about 1000 interactions with patients each day.
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WA Police refused request to stop accessing Covid check-in app data
By Justin Hendry on Jun 16, 2021 5:24PM
Forcing the govt to introduce new laws.
WA Police turned down a government request to stop accessing QR code check-in data from the state’s SafeWA app, forcing the hasty introduction of new legislation this week.
Premier Mark McGowan told WA’s parliament on Tuesday the government had tried to negotiate a way forward after it came to light that police had lawfully accessed the data on two occasions.
The contact registration information was accessed as part of an investigation into two serious crimes using a loophole, which the government is now racing to plug.
“The police commissioner advised me that under the law it is actually lawful for police officers to access any information unless it is expressly unlawful,” McGowan said.
“So police officers on two occasion had accessed, as part of investigations into very serious crimes, information using the SafeWA app.
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The 3 most important technology imperatives for your aged care organisation following the 2021 Federal Budget and the Aged Care Royal Commission
Published on June 16, 2021
Seize the day! Now is the time to act upon the reforms announced in the 2021 Federal Budget and the recommendations of the Aged Care Royal Commission.
The final report from the Royal Commission outlined a range of critically important reforms that provide an immediate opportunity to work towards an aged care system that places people at the centre; underpinned by digital technologies that enable better aging.
Commitment to the recommendations can be seen in the 2021 Federal Budget reforms, and a boost of an additional $17.7 billion over five years is good news for older Australians because it will lead to major improvements across the sector.
This includes $7.8 billion to improve the quality, safety, and sustainability of residential aged care services plus $6.5 billion to deliver an additional 80,000 Home Care Packages – bringing the total to 275,000 packages.
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UnitingCare Queensland restores key systems after ransomware attack
By Ry Crozier on Jun 16, 2021 12:50PM
Says 'many' system integrations have also been re-enabled.
UnitingCare Queensland said it has restored its "key corporate systems" and re-enabled "many" integrations between systems following a ransomware infection in late April.
The hospital and aged care facility operator said in an update last week that it had “made good progress in bringing ... systems and applications back online”.
It also said that it had “introduced improved security controls across [its] digital environment” in the wake of the attack.
This included “increased process controls and ... a market-leading endpoint detect-and-response (EDR) solution to provide ongoing protection,” it said in a statement dated June 10.
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https://developer.digitalhealth.gov.au/hips
HIPS
If you develop software for hospitals or other large healthcare organisations, then you may want to implement HIPS as middleware to integrate Digital Health products such as the Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service) and My Health Record system. Get started below.
Resources
Products, Specifications | EP-3456:2021
The HIPS product enables the seamless integration of digital health systems with national digital health infrastructure services, such as the Healthcare Identifiers Service, the My Health Record system, and national directory services as well as the secure point-to-point exchange of clinical documents via Secure Message Delivery (SMD).
News
May 19
HIPS v8.2 Released
The Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) has released a new minor release of its HIPS middleware product - HIPS v8.2.
By operation of the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability (Establishing the Australian Digital Health Agency) Rule 2016, on 1 July 2016, all the assets and liabilities of NEHTA will vest in the Australian Digital Health Agency. In this website, on and from 1 July 2016, all references to "National E-Health Transition Authority" or "NEHTA" will be deemed to be references to the Australian Digital Health Agency. PCEHR means the My Health Record, formerly the "Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record", within the meaning of the My Health Records Act 2012 (Cth), formerly called the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records Act 2012 (Cth).
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/doctors-urged-be-careful-over-medical-apps
Doctors urged to be 'careful' over medical apps
Australian research shows that 88% of health and medical apps could access and potentially share personal data
17th June 2021
Doctors and patients should be "very careful" when recommending and using medical and health apps, warns the Australian author of an in-depth analysis of more than 20,000 health-related apps available through Google Play.
The BMJ study reveals serious privacy issues with the potential for sensitive health data to be shared with third parties, such as advertisers and analytics and tracking providers, without users' consent.
Up to 88% could access and potentially share personal data.
The researchers say clinicians need to be aware of these issues when discussing the benefits and risks of mobile-health (mHealth) apps with patients and inform them of the potential risks.
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https://www.hinz.org.nz/news/569979/Prime-Minister-introduces-Book-My-Vaccine.htm
Prime Minister introduces Book My Vaccine
Thursday, 17 June 2021
NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
has introduced the new national Covid-19 vaccine booking system, called Book My
Vaccine.
Ardern told a press conference on June 17 that the new system will be ready to
use nationally when those aged over 60 are invited to book their vaccinations
from July 28, 2021.
Ardern said people would be invited via email, text, mail or phone to book
their first and second appointments using Book My Vaccine.
“It's an easy-to-use accessible tool, but for those who may not wish to use
web-based services we'll also have a new national vaccination booking call
centre,” she said.
Ardern said the health system has up-to-date contact details for 90 percent of
the population and anyone worried their details may not be up to date can visit
Book My Vaccine to register them.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/hundreds-lives-have-been-saved
'Hundreds of lives have been saved'
Sydney intensivist Dr Dhaval Ghelani has been running a crash course in ICU over Zoom for staff at a specially set up COVID-19 hospital in India
11th June 2021
As India’s COVID-19 tragedy escalated, Sydney intensivist Dr Dhaval Ghelani couldn’t treat patients in person, so he took to Zoom to help out.
The Blacktown Hospital intensive care specialist was part of a drive by a charity to set up a 50-bed hospital for critically ill coronavirus patients in an impoverished rural region in India in just 10 days.
The not-for-profit Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur repurposed a rehabilitation centre, then sourced beds, ventilators, medications and recruited staff for the hospital in the town of Dharampur in Gujarat State, Western India.
That’s where the charity’s Australian president Dr Ghelani came in, giving a crash course in intensive care to the doctors and nurses at the facility that treats patients for free.
He says the people in the region have very limited access to medical facilities, and an average daily wage of $2 a day.
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Thursday, 17 June 2021 13:07
Dementia Australia launches mobile app to help care workers and people living with dementia
The mobile app, Ask Annie, educates and trains care workers through self-paced learning modules, guides them through a range of scenarios, and trains them how to better care for dementia patients.
With the support of Gandel Philanthropy, Dementia Australia launches a mobile app to improve the quality of care for people living with dementia built on the skills of home support and community care workers.
Mobile app Ask Annie offers short, self-paced learning modules to help home support and community care workers refresh their skills and learn tips and techniques to provide better care.
Annie is a virtual tool for community care workers and guides them through a range of scenarios, based on real life experiences, to strengthen their dementia care skills.
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https://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/ascom-australia-brings-hospital-solutions-south-australia
Ascom Australia brings hospital solutions to South Australia
Adam Ang | 18 Jun 2021
Ascom Australia has tapped Adelaide-based Ikonix Technology to market its range of technology products for healthcare systems, including the Telligence nurse call, teleCARE IP, Real-time Location Systems for asset tracking and staff safety and mobility solutions like the Ascom Myco smart device.
WHY IT MATTERS
Through its latest partnership, Ascom is deepening its presence in South Australia. "Ikonix [is] well known in the industry and have dealt with varied solutions in healthcare, having the right expertise to sell and install our product in a region where we don’t have a direct presence," the company said in an interview with Healthcare IT Australia.
Ascom is offering solutions that address the digital transformation requirements of their customers at every stage of development. "[H]aving [the] ability to offer configurable and customisable solutions is important as it allows our customers to come on board where they are most comfortable and then be able to grow with us and us to be able to grow with them and present new solutions and find other ways to optimise their performance," it said.
Among products, its Healthcare Platform comprises workflow solutions that are designed to utilise digital clinical information "for the benefit of patients and care teams".
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Targeted medicine safety in primary care aims to reduce hospital stays
Published June 14, 2021
Author Deborah Marshall
Decreasing the number of medication-related hospital admissions is the aim of a $2.5 million Medical Research Future Fund project co-led by Griffith University and QUT.
The three-year collaborative study will use health record data to automate the detection of medicine safety issues before harm occurs.
“In Australia, 250,000 hospital admissions and 400,000 emergency presentations per year are due to potentially preventable medication-related hospitalisations,” said Dr Jean Spinks from Griffith University’s Centre for Applied Health Economics.
“Medicine safety can be targeted in primary care by identifying people at greatest risk, undertaking interventions in a timely way and ensuring the health workforce can resolve problems before harm occurs.”
Pharmacists, working collaboratively with GPs, Primary Health Networks and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisations (ACCHO’s), will systematically address issues such as under prescribing, over prescribing or incomplete therapeutic monitoring.
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Watch Managing Director Kate Quirke's interview with The ASX Investor
Last week, Alcidion (ASX: ALC) Managing Director Kate Quirke
was interviewed by the ASX Investor YouTube channel, where they discussed
Alcidion’s growth and the role the Company plays as a leading ASX-listed
medtech at the forefront of the digital transformation of healthcare.
During the interview, Kate Quirke provided insight into how Alcidion is
addressing the large market opportunity in Australia, New Zealand and the UK,
in particular. The Company’s approach to building relationships with
hospitals and how it is tracking following its recent Institutional Placement,
SPP and acquisition of ExtraMed were also addressed.
The complete interview is available via the ASX Investor YouTube channel above,
or through this link.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/future-nbn-pricing-may-have-more-options-and-constraints-566102
Future NBN pricing may have more options and constraints
By Ry Crozier on Jun 18, 2021 10:10AM
As ACCC reveals its own thinking ahead of roundtable today.
NBN Co may be required to offer internet retailers more ways to differentiate the services they resell, and may also be prevented from withdrawing products or making them more expensive, under ideas to be canvassed at a roundtable today.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released a discussion paper [pdf] on Thursday afternoon that will help guide discussions at the roundtable event with NBN Co and retail service providers today.
NBN Co has separately released its own discussion paper and set of proposals, which are also set to be debated.
These include simplified wholesale pricing that would partially or fully remove variable connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) bandwidth charges, and replace them with indexed price increases once a year.
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Jeff Bezos’ trip to space sells for $36m
· AFP
A mystery bidder has paid $US28 million ($36m) at an auction for a seat with Jeff Bezos on board the first crewed spaceflight of the billionaire’s company Blue Origin next month.
The Amazon founder revealed last week that he and his brother Mark would take seats on board the company’s New Shepard launch vehicle on July 20, to fly to the edge of space and back.
The Bezos brothers will be joined by the winner of Saturday’s charity auction, whose identity remains unknown, and by a fourth, as yet unnamed space tourist.
“The name of the auction winner will be released in the weeks following the auction’s conclusion,” tweeted Blue Origin following the sale. “Then, the fourth and final crew member will be announced – stay tuned.”
Saturday’s successful bidder beat 20 rivals in an auction launched on May 19 and ended with a 10-minute livecast frenzy.
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Enjoy!
David.
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