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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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https://careers.vic.gov.au/job/change-and-adoption-lead-health-systems-solutions-546237
Change and Adoption Lead, Health Systems Solutions (VPSG6)
Job posted: 23/07/2021
Applications close: 08/08/2021 (Midnight)
Job Description
Location: Melbourne | CBD
Job type: Full time / to 30/06/2022
Organisation: Department of Health
Salary: $124,033 - $165,983
Occupation: Projects
Reference: VG/DH/CS/629419
The Department of Health plays a critical role in the Victorian health system and is responsible for shaping it to meet the health needs of Victorians into the future. We also lead the Victorian Government's response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Working with our partners, we oversee Victoria's health system including mental health, ageing and aged care and preventive health. We are committed to developing and supporting a workforce that is well equipped and highly motivated to provide responsive and quality services to all Victorians. All jobs can be worked flexibly and we encourage job applications from Aboriginal people, people with disabilities, LGBTQI+ and people from culturally diverse backgrounds and differences to realise the potential of our employees for innovation and delivering services.
https://www.innovationaus.com/police-should-be-locked-out-of-digital-id-scheme/
Police should be locked out of digital ID scheme
Joseph
Brookes
Senior Reporter
21 July 2021
Former Australian Privacy Commissioner Malcolm Crompton has recommended law enforcement agencies be explicitly prevented from accessing data from the government’s digital identity program, which is being prepared for an economy-wide expansion.
The program currently allows users of federal government services to verify their identity for use across multiple services by accessing an identity framework of identity and attribute providers, with Home Affairs verifying documents and biometrics.
The government plans to introduce legislation this year to expand the program to the states and private sector, creating an economy wide system that could collect sensitive logs and meta-data, and stores it for several years.
The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA), which has developed the program over several years at a cost of $450 million, is finalising the legislation it says will establish protections and governance for the scheme’s expansion.
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https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-establishes-ransomware-taskforce/
Govt establishes ransomware taskforce
Denham
Sadler
Senior Reporter
19 July 2021
The federal government has ordered its intelligence forces to go on the offensive against ransomware gangs, with a new cross-agency taskforce established and a near-tripling of the AFP officers focusing on the issue.
A new taskforce, dubbed Operation Orcus, has been established, spanning across agencies including the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC), Austrac and state and territory police forces, the Australian reported.
As part of this new taskforce, the number of AFP staff working directly with the ACSC on cyber issues will jump from 13 to 35.
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What is AI? Here's everything you need to know about artificial intelligence
An executive guide to artificial intelligence, from machine learning and general AI to neural networks.
By Nick Heath | July 23, 2021 -- 20:21 GMT (06:21 AEST) | Topic: Managing AI and ML in the Enterprise
What is artificial intelligence (AI)?
It depends who you ask.
Back in the 1950s, the fathers of the field, Minsky and McCarthy, described artificial intelligence as any task performed by a machine that would have previously been considered to require human intelligence.
That's obviously a fairly broad definition, which is why you will sometimes see arguments over whether something is truly AI or not.
Modern definitions of what it means to create intelligence are more specific. Francois Chollet, an AI researcher at Google and creator of the machine-learning software library Keras, has said intelligence is tied to a system's ability to adapt and improvise in a new environment, to generalise its knowledge and apply it to unfamiliar scenarios.
"Intelligence is the efficiency with which you acquire new skills at tasks you didn't previously prepare for," he said.
"Intelligence is not skill itself; it's not what you can do; it's how well and how efficiently you can learn new things."
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-forced-to-release-overdue-covidsafe-report-567797
Govt forced to release overdue COVIDSafe report
By Justin Hendry on Jul 23, 2021 11:01AM
But redacts most of it.
The federal government has been forced to release a heavily redacted version of a report evaluating the effectiveness of its COVIDSafe contact tracing app after failing to produce the report itself.
But the document covering the first six months of the app's operation is of little value, with swathes of information relating to its usefulness during the first stage of the pandemic removed.
The independent report, released following a freedom of information request by the Canberra Times, comes almost 18 months after the app was introduced and 12 months after the reporting period.
Under legislation governing COVIDSafe, the Department of Health is required to report on the operation and effectiveness of the app and the national COVIDSafe data store every six months.
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https://www.innovationaus.com/govt-releases-highly-redacted-covidsafe-report/
Govt releases highly redacted COVIDSafe report
Denham
Sadler
Senior Reporter
22 July 2021
The federal government has been forced to release a report on the effectiveness of its controversial contact tracing app COVIDSafe, but has removed all parts relating to this and left only basic information and positive comments.
The report, released this week following a Freedom of Information request, has wholly redacted all of the parts relevant to its effectiveness and comes nearly a year after the government was required to release it.
COVIDSafe uses a smartphone’s Bluetooth technology to log close contacts between users and then send these to a national database and state health authorities if a user tests positive for COVID-19. It was launched by the federal government with much fanfare in April last year.
Accompanying legislation enshrining privacy protections around the app in law required the Department of Health to report on the operation and effectiveness of the app and the national database every six months.
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Technology enables health care to reach one of the most remote communities in the world
Friday, 23 July, 2021 ADHA Propaganda
When border closures meant that no doctors or allied health outreach professionals could reach the remote community of Tjuntjuntjara for more than 10 months, digital health provided an answer.
The Aboriginal community of Tjuntjuntjara in Western Australia is one of the most remote communities in the world, yet telehealth and the use of My Health Record have transformed healthcare delivery to the region.
Tjuntjuntjara is 650 km north-east of Kalgoorlie in the Great Victoria Desert. The 160 people living there speak a southern variety of the Pitjantjatjara language and identify as belonging to a group of people known as Pilanguášu, meaning ‘from the spinifex plains’. For the last 10 years, the Aboriginal community-controlled Spinifex Health Service in Tjuntjuntjara has been serviced by a fly-in/fly-out GP and other health professionals through the Adelaide-based Kakarrara Wilurrara Health Alliance (KWHA).
With the advent of COVID-19 and the closure of the Western Australian border to the KWHA planes and health professionals from South Australia, doctors and allied health outreach professionals were unable to go to Tjuntjuntjara for more than 10 months from March 2020 to January 2021.
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https://everi.events/event/13745611-a/australian-digital-health-agency-adha-priorities-update
AIIA presents
Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) Priorities Update
· Wed 25th Aug 2021, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
with Dr Mal Thatcher, ADHA Chief Technology Officer
What are the Australian Digital Health Agency’s priorities and workplan for the next 12 months? How can AIIA members best support and work with the ADHA and others in the Australian digital health ecosystem on those priorities and the workplan?
This is your chance to learn about the Australian Digital Health Agency’s priorities and opportunities for collaboration by joining Dr Mal Thatcher, ADHA Chief Technology Officer, in this AIIA Health PAN-hosted webinar with Q&A facilitated by AIIA Health PAN member Dr Tim Smyth.
Speaker
Dr Mal Thatcher
ADHA’s Chief Technology Officer.
Dr Thatcher’s previous roles include Chief Health Information Officer (CHIO) for Queensland Health and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Mater Healthcare Group in Brisbane, as well as interim CIO and Chief Executive of eHealth Queensland.
Dr Thatcher has a doctoral degree (PhD) from the Queensland University of Technology with a focus on digital risk and governance. In 2010, he completed a certificate course in Leadership Strategies in Information Technology at Harvard University and in 2016 he was recognised as one of the top 50 CIOs in Australia by CIO Magazine Australia.
In September 2019, Dr Thatcher was appointed Professor of Digital Practice in the QUT Graduate School of Business with a focus on digital transformation, risk and governance and is also a published author on digital health.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/rethinking-our-interoperability-paradigm-in-the-cloud/
22 June 2021
Rethinking our interoperability paradigm: in the cloud
What happens if government puts a stake in the ground, as has occurred in the US and the UK, and says to local providers and vendors, enough is enough, you’ve all got five years to be open and interoperable to this standard?
Interoperability is a dirty word.
It promised us so much but has disappointed us so much more.
It dictates nearly all of our serious thinking time in digital health. We are obsessed with the word, with the problem.
It drains away enormous amounts of funding in all sorts of ways which somehow are never in any meaningful alignment.
If you look at the interoperability scoreboard in the last two decades, you don’t see many wins: perhaps electronic prescribing is a notable recent exception, although this is still not working properly.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/telstra-health-officially-comes-in-from-the-wilderness-what-now/
22 July 2021
Telstra Health officially comes in from the wilderness: what now?
Telstra Health’s intention to take a 70% piece of Adelaide-based global hospital costing, billing, and budgeting solutions provider PowerHealth Solutions signals that the country’s largest digital health company is serious again about building an Australian digital health juggernaut.
In late March of 2016 Telstra Health looked like a failed experiment of innovative but outgoing CEO, David Thodey, and his personally hired CEO come digital health evangelist, Shane Solomon. It was famously described by one senior industry analyst at that time as being a “classic Telstra cluster f&*k”. Although somewhat crude, the label did seem to fit at the time.
In a few short years Solomon had acquired stakes in over 18 separate, and at times disparate, digital health companies, at a cost of about $200m, with the intention to eventually string them all together (and presumably make pearls) via the acquisition of a platform business at the centre of the future universe of chronic health management, either of the major GP patient management groups, Medical Director or Best Practice.
But the main Telstra business was in trouble in late 2015, and the innovative CEO left the role to his more conservative and pragmatic finance director, Andy Penn.
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HealthEngine tests appetite for $100m raising, taps brokers for IPO
Anthony Macdonald and Yolanda Redrup
Jul 21, 2021 – 9.33pm
Telstra Ventures and Seven West Media-backed online healthcare booking service HealthEngine is gearing up to make its maiden pitch to equity investors ahead of a possible float.
The country’s No.1 consumer healthcare platform is lining up investors for a non-deal roadshow next week, and is understood to be considering trying to raise in the order of $100 million for its float, depending on the intentions of its current shareholders.
A float would be an opportunity for Seven West to exit the business, like it did earlier this year with Airtasker, having tried to sell its stake as part of a venture investments portfolio sale last year.
Founded by former GP Marcus Tan and Adam Yap in 2009, HealthEngine has appointed RBC Capital Markets and Bell Potter as joint lead managers.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/opinion/having-problems-escript-repeats-i-have-answer
Having problems with e-script repeats? I have the answer
Dr Lilienthal is a GP and medicolegal adviser in Sydney, NSW.
21st July 2021
Are you, like me, having problems with e-prescription repeats?
E-prescribing has been with us for some months now and the vast majority of my patients think it is wonderful and long overdue.
I love it too and jokingly state that we have finally made the great leap forward to 20th century technology.
The problem I encounter most is with repeat prescriptions. They are not actually referred to as repeats, just the number of units left on the prescription after one lot has been dispensed.
When patients tap the link on their screens and open up the tokens, aka QR codes, if there are any repeats, a line appears along the top of the token stating how many items are left.
Each time the pharmacist dispenses a unit, the big computer in the sky is supposed to issue a new link that brings a new token which then displays the reduced number of items/repeats available from the original prescription.
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Centrelink glitch strands thousands without Covid-19 funds
Technical failures with the government’s MyGov platform have left people unable to access urgently needed financial relief via the website, causing long queues outside Centrelink offices on Tuesday.
The system has come under increasing strain as the protracted Sydney lockdown and new restrictions on construction and retail in NSW leave hundreds of thousands without work.
A $600 payment is available from Services Australia for people who have lost more than 20 hours of work, and a $375 payment is available for those who have lost between eight and 20 hours.
But a series of online glitches left hundreds of people lining for hours outside several Sydney centres. In order to prove eligibility and submit a claim, a person must login to an existing MyGov account or create a new one. The person must also create a Centrelink account by showing three original documents for proof of identity, generating a unique customer reference number to link the two accounts.
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Digital Bytes with Dr Jason King - Managing important health information with digital health tools
Published 19 July 2021 ADHA Propaganda
Watch the latest Digital Bytes with Dr Jason King to learn about the importance of managing health information with digital health tools in Far North Queensland.
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US and allies expose details of China’s cyber attacks
Matthew Cranston United States correspondent
Jul 19, 2021 – 9.00pm
Washington | Australia has joined the United States and other Five Eyes nations to expose in detail the Chinese government’s role in cyber attacks around the world, including this year’s hack of Microsoft Exchange Server email software.
The US administration, alongside its allies, formally called out China for a malicious cyber campaign using the Microsoft Exchange Server, a senior administration official told a select media briefing on Sunday (Monday AEST).
Businesses and governments around the world, including in Australia, were caught up in the massive hack, in which malicious operators broke into private and government computer networks via the widely-used Exchange software.
“We will show how the [People’s Republic of China] Ministry of State Security ... uses criminal contract hackers to conduct unsanctioned cyber operations globally, including for their own personal profit,” the official said.
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https://gcphn.org.au/practice-support/digital-health/digital-health/
Digital Health
ADHA Propaganda
Gold Coast Primary Health Network (GCPHN) is supporting Gold Coast health care professionals with enhancing their use of digital health platforms. GCPHN can provide support for providers wanting to utilise tools such as My Health Record, electronic prescriptions and other mechanisms to securely transfer patient information.
If you are a health care provider and cannot find the information you are looking for or require digital health support, please contact: digitalhealth@gcphn.com.au or phone the GCPHN Practice Support Helpdesk on 07 5612 5408.
For education and training opportunities please click here
Electronic Prescribing
An electronic prescription is a digital version of a paper prescription. During your consultation, your healthcare provider can send your electronic prescription to you as an SMS or email.
- Australian Digital Health Agency online resources for prescribers and dispensers
- Australian Department of Health electronic prescribing information
- Pharmacy Society of Australia (PSA) electronic prescriptions information
- Australian Department of Health Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) Information on Active Ingredient Prescribing (AIP)
My Health Record
My Health Record is an online summary of an individual’s key health information. This can be viewed securely online, from anywhere, at any time by individuals and their health care providers. To register for My Health Record you will require a PRODA account. Health care providers wanting to register for My Health Record or require additional education and resources should contact the GCPHN Digital Health Team via digitalhealth@gcphn.com.au
- My Health Record – General information for health care professionals and consumers
- Step-by-step instructions for health care providers registering for My Health Record
- Understand privacy, security, and consent
- Software guides and demonstrations
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Why the healthcare sector must reduce its reliance on legacy IT systems
By Brent Paterson, Managing Director, Australia
and New Zealand, SNP
Wednesday, 14 July, 2021
Healthcare workers have faced incredible challenges in the past 18 months as the world continues to respond to the ongoing risks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing and lockdowns have, among other restrictions, created new obstacles for healthcare workers to overcome as they work to keep patients safe and healthy. However, while healthcare workers face physical challenges across their hospitals, they also face challenges within the technological infrastructure that underpins operations.
Adapting to new ways of working is critical, particularly for workers operating in a time-intensive and high-pressure environment such as a hospital. While people can be incredibly flexible and quick to adjust to new practices, streamlining the underlying technology infrastructure can be a more time-consuming process. However, leveraging modern technology solutions, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, is one of the most effective ways for healthcare facilities to keep pace with changing workplace needs. In fact, it’s essential that healthcare organisations move quickly to update their technologies or risk creating more challenges for healthcare workers and patients alike.
Relying on outdated legacy systems can create issues for healthcare organisations as they may risk losing access to updated patient information and data. It’s critical that doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers have access to the most up-to-date patient information to deliver the best possible care. Doing this depends on ready access to accurate and comprehensive patient data.
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https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2021/26/data-sharing-a-low-priority-for-aussie-covid-19-researchers/
Data sharing a low priority for Aussie COVID-19 researchers
Authored by Cate Swannell
AUSTRALIAN COVID-19 researchers appear to be less willing to share their data than perhaps they should be, say academics from the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Clinical Trials Centre at the University of Sydney.
Dr Anna Lede Seidler and colleagues analysed data from the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry and ClinicalTrials.gov from 1 January to 16 November 2020.
They found 56 COVID-19 trials, only four of which were completed (7%), with the remainder recruiting (n = 26, 46%), not yet recruiting (n = 24, 43%), or withdrawn (n = 2, 4%). Forty trials (71%) had no commercial sponsor and were funded by government or not-for-profit sources. Only seven trials (12%) included populations at high risk of poor outcomes from COVID-19 such as people with comorbidities.
Data sharing seemed to be low on the list of priorities for COVID-19 researchers, despite several high-profile calls for collaboration and data sharing across studies, a development Seidler and colleagues described as “concerning”.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
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