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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://www.innovationaus.com/three-years-in-the-making-australian-data-strategy-launched/
Three years in the making: Australian Data Strategy launched
James
Riley
Editorial Director
15 December 2021
Three and half years after appointing an interim National Data Commissioner to build-out federal data policy frameworks, the government has launched the first ever Australian Data Strategy.
The strategy, which was substantially previewed two weeks ago by the Prime Minister in a speech to the Business Council of Australia, was officially unveiled by Employment minister Stuart Robert and Digital Economy Minister Jane Hume in Canberra on Tuesday.
Mr Robert said data was a national asset that when leveraged could deliver transformational benefits to citizens.
The Australian government had demonstrated this in the response to the initial COVID-19 outbreak, he said, using private and public data to respond to the health and economic impacts of the virus.
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AFP breach privacy rules in using facial recognition app: privacy watchdog
Denham
Sadler
National Affairs Editor
16 December 2021
The Australian Federal Police breached privacy rules in its use of a controversial facial recognition tool by not properly assessing the risks of using the technology, the national privacy watchdog has found.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) released its determination on the AFP’s use of Clearview AI, finding that it failed to comply with its privacy obligations by not completing a privacy impact assessment, and didn’t have systems in place to track its use of the technology.
Clearview AI, based in the US, offers a facial recognition app which allows users to upload a photo of an individual and have it matched with images in the company’s database of at least 3 billion images hoovered from around the internet. If a match is found, the tool then provides a link to where the matching images were found online.
Last month the OAIC found that Clearview AI had breached Australian privacy rules through the “indiscriminate and automated” collection of sensitive biometric information of Australians on a “large scale, for profit”.
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Digital and healthcare in Australia – can we leapfrog change if we get the incentives right?
Dec 17, 2021 | Digital Health, eHealth, Innovation, Webinar
As the Government reviews its national digital health strategy and priorities, we look at the opportunities and challenges that Australia has in moving ahead with healthcare system reform and change.
Many health providers are looking to better platform their services, while consumers are continually looking for better options to access services and care. Trends show an ever-growing number of options for personalisation through consumer tech and interconnected devices, as individual health and wellness merge. The challenge for healthcare is how to take advantage of this wave of digital innovation while providing the data privacy and security necessary to help protect against data theft or loss.
A webinar was held recently which explored the question of how to leverage these trends in the market to provide create greater efficiencies, build a better experience for consumers, and make it easier (and not harder) for practitioners to deliver care? The session asked how can we maintain the momentum that has been highlighted through the pandemic, or are there other ways to approach reform and change to leapfrog ahead?
Steven Lazer, Global Healthcare and Life Science CTO Dell Technologies, provided industry perspectives on the trends in connected care and digital transformation of healthcare. He said understanding the drivers around patient and consumer outcomes, clinical effectiveness, and clinical efficiencies we are seeing that there is so much more that we can all do from a technical capability perspective with advancements in AI, virtual care, data analytics, and more. “There is a wonderful opportunity to take this opportunity coming out of the pandemic to leverage what we have and drive towards a connected care system and ensure that we continue forward and not slip backwards”. Steven said: “We can take these capabilities and drive the system to be much more efficient than where we are today.”
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Australia's first data strategy to create 'one-stop shop' for accessing government data
The national data strategy will aspire to make Australia a modern, data-driven society by 2030.
Written by Campbell Kwan,
on December 14, 2021 | Topic: Innovation
A new data strategy was announced by the federal government on Tuesday morning, outlining a goal for Australia to have a modern, data-driven society by 2030.
The data strategy, a first for Australia, will focus on initiatives based around maximising the value of data, trust and protection, and enabling data use. The strategy sits alongside an action plan that sets out those initiatives and their expected delivery timeframes up to 2025.
At the end of 2025, the federal government will then update the data strategy to implement new initiatives up to 2030, said Stuart Robert, the Minister responsible for digital transformation.
Robert said the strategy was developed in consultation with private, research, and not-for-profit sectors.
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https://www.lgbtiqhealth.org.au/can_digital_health_improve_the_lives_of_lgbtiq_people
Can digital health improve the lives of LGBTIQ+ people?
Published December 17, 2021
Teresa Savage, a consultant in LGBTIQ+ ageing and health and our Project Manager Roundtable and Digital Health, writes about the potential for digital health services to improve the lives of LGBTIQ+ people in rural and regional Australia.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) people living in rural and regional Australia face significant challenges accessing safe and inclusive health care.
Repeated experiences of stigma and discrimination, as well as social exclusion and isolation, regularly result in poor health and wellbeing. Digital health services have the potential to improve health outcomes for LGBTIQ+ people.
In 2020, LGBTIQ+ Health Australia was invited to partner with the Australian Digital Health Agency to explore opportunities for expanding digital health services for older Australians. Through a community consultative approach, details of the barriers to digital health services for all LGBTIQ+ people emerged, along with ideas about how online technologies could address the care gap.
At the core of digital health provision is My Health Record (MHR). Concerns about security breaches of government data and individual breaches of privacy mean that LGBTIQ+ people living in rural and regional settings, particularly in small communities, are wary of the possible adverse consequences of disclosing their sexuality, HIV status or gender identity. Individuals weigh this risk against the advantages of coordinated care resulting from having their whole story in one place.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6f42d471-0199-448a-8bab-7ed66a6bf06e
In a nutshell: data protection, privacy and cybersecurity in Australia
Allens Emily Cravigan and Gavin Smith
Australia November 5 2021
An extract from The Privacy, Data Protection and Cybersecurity Law Review, 8th Edition
Overview
In Australia, the key legislation governing privacy and data protection is the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). It regulates the handling of personal information by:
- private sector organisations (with some exceptions; for example, businesses with an annual turnover of less than A$3 million); and
- federal government agencies (most state and territory government agencies are instead governed under various state-based regimes).
The Privacy Act is also the key legislation governing cybersecurity. However, as cybercrime is increasingly seen as a growing threat to Australia's economy and national security, lawmakers are increasingly addressing cyber issues through stand-alone legislation2 rather than by seeking amendments to the Privacy Act, which is principles-based and deals with cybersecurity only in relation to personal data (see Section IX).
There is no general charter of human rights in Australia, and as such there is no general recognition of privacy being a fundamental right under Australian law. However, some jurisdictions within Australia have enacted human rights legislation that recognises the protection of privacy as a human right.3
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/gov-to-spend-another-161m-on-digital-identity-system-574158
Gov to spend another $161m on digital identity system
By Justin Hendry on Dec 16, 2021 6:35PM
Part of $252.5m digital economy package in MYEFO 2021.
The federal government will spend another $161 million on its federated digital identity system over the next two years, bringing total investment since 2015 to more than $600 million.
The new funding, revealed in the 2020-21 mid-year economic and fiscal outlook - abbreviated to MYEFO - [pdf] on Thursday, will allow the government to continue the program, known as GovPass, until at least 2024-25.
The investment forms part of a $252.5 million digital economy package, which builds on the $1.2 billion over six years the government put towards the digital economy strategy in the May federal budget.
The new funding for the federated digital identity system will be provided between the 2022-23 and 2024-25 financial years to “improve online access to government services and payments”.
…..
The Department of Health will receive $154 million over two years to replace the aged care IT system, allowing providers to exchange data with government in near real-time.
The funding will also be used to “begin work on an ICT system to support a new in-home care program”.
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Australian Federal Police restricts free software trials after Clearview AI
By Ry Crozier on Dec 16, 2021 1:24PM
Privacy watchdog left unconvinced.
The Australian Federal Police’s trial of controversial facial recognition database Clearview AI was effectively ‘shadow IT’, officially unapproved and undertaken without a formal privacy assessment.
An investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner [pdf] found 10 “members” of the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) registered for trial accounts after learning of the tool’s existence from other authorities.
They then uploaded a range of images - some publicly available, some “derived from images distributed using underground marketplaces”, and some of ACCCE members - to Clearview AI.
No records of access to Clearview AI, or of “many” of the files uploaded to the service, were kept.
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https://wildhealth.net.au/ai-is-here-to-stay-but-can-it-help-fix-covid/
16 December 2021
AI is here to stay, but can it help fix covid?
AI Big Data COVID-19 Technology
By Fran Molloy
The pandemic saw remarkable advances in health technology, as governments and institutions fast tracked funding and decision making to identify, control, treat and prevent covid.
Hundreds of these projects used artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to solve the myriad problems that emerged during covid. Many of them were tasked with uncovering patterns in radiology images, patient demographics, symptoms and histories, to inform diagnoses and predict patient outcomes.
But despite the hype, evidence has emerged suggesting that almost all of these projects were flawed. In the face of a pandemic, AI often turned out to be a solution in search of a problem.
That’s not to say we should write AI off, says Dr Stefan Hajkowocz, Principal Scientist at CSIRO’s Data61 and author of best-selling book Global Megatrends, which predicts that AI is one of the digital technologies that will become critical to most industries in coming decades, along with data science, computer vision and natural language processing.
While applications of AI to clinical support – particularly in the early days of covid – had unreliable outcomes, AI is making huge inroads into scientific endeavour, he says.
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ANDHEALTH NEWS
New Report:
2021 Industry Sentiment Survey
If
you want to see a snapshot of what a sample of Australian digital health
companies are thinking, read our mini-report: On the Home Front: 2021 Industry Sentiment Survey.
Here we present data from 60 respondents from digital health companies, or
associated with digital health companies, who participated in our 2021
sentiment survey. This is a repeat of the sentiment survey conducted in May
2020 (53 respondents) and included alongside data from more than 300
emerging high-growth potential digital health companies in our database in our
widely-acclaimed publication, Digital
Heath, The Sleeping Giant of Australia’s Health Technology Industry.
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https://www.zedmed.com.au/node/294
My Health Record for Specialists Lunch-n-Learn
14 December, 2021 ADHA Propaganda
Posted in: Lunch-n-Learn
Join our Training Team for our Lunch-n-Learn on My Health Record for Specialists next Monday 20th December from 1:30-2:30pm (AEDT).
Learn
more about the new and enhanced My Health Record functionality for
specialists.
Click here to
register.
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https://www.miragenews.com/santa-supports-my-health-record-694265/
15 Dec 2021 9:36 am AEDT
Santa supports My Health Record
Australian Digital Health Agency ADHA Propaganda
Santa has joined the Australian Digital Health Agency this year to urge Australians to give themselves the gift of better health care by using their My Health Record.
“I’ve been using mine for years now and encourage the elves to do the same,” Santa said.
“Like making a list and getting it right, having your health information in one place means you don’t forget the important things.”
“I travel a lot at this time of year and if I do get sick, I don’t need to tell my health story over and over again,” Santa said. “It’s all in my digital record including my vaccination status. Besides, there simply isn’t enough room in the sleigh for more paper. With digital records, I don’t need to carry around physical documents.”
Agency Chief Clinical Adviser Dr Steve Hambleton said “Santa knows the last thing we want is for him to suffer an adverse reaction because any new medication interacts with what he is already taking.”
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Portal offers new front door for your government data
Tom Burton Government editor
Dec 14, 2021 – 12.00am
A portal allowing easy access to all Commonwealth public data is the centrepiece of a new national strategy aimed at creating an ecosystem of data that is accessible, reliable and relevant.
The strategy pulls together multiple data initiatives across the federal government, aiming to increase the value of its 98,000 data sets while strengthening “guard rails” to build trust and protect people’s information.
The strategy complements the recent digital government and digital economy strategies and is part of a broader thrust to modernise the federal government.
It comes as Services Australia sent live its new website, redesigned around “life events” such as raising children, looking for work, or retirement. The previous site had been centred around major government programs such as Centrelink and Medicare.
The new approach aims to make it easier and faster for people to find the information they need, based on their individual circumstances.
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Dec 14th, 2021
199 - Adoption of Digital Solutions in Primary Health Care Practices; Cathy Baynie, Australian Association Practice Management (AAPM)
The role of the practice manager is a critical one in Australian healthcare.
Cathy Baynie is the immediate past National President of Australian Association of Practice Management and now holds a role as their Executive Manager, Advocacy and Professional Services.
The Australian Association of Practice Management is the peak body for practice managers in Australia. The association advocates for its members at a government level with the department of health engagement, other key stakeholders and major players in the primary health industry.
In this episode, Pete and Cathy explore the importance of clinical and system Co-design impacting the uptake of digital solutions. They also look at the role that practice managers play in the implementation and adoption of technology in primary care practice.
Check out the episode and full show notes here.
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COVID Innovation Fund - AusTender Industry Briefing
The COVID Innovation Fund is an Australian Government initiative to procure new and emerging digital health solutions that align with the national COVID-19 vaccine rollout and future proof Australia’s healthcare system. The Innovation Fund targets opportunities to make a difference through addressing barriers that we are seeing today and using digital health solutions to make new ways of working more efficient and effective.
The COVID Innovation Fund is an Australian Government initiative to procure new and emerging digital health solutions that align with the national COVID-19 vaccine rollout and future proof Australia’s healthcare system. The Innovation Fund targets opportunities to make a difference through addressing barriers that we are seeing today and using digital health solutions to make new ways of working more efficient and effective.
The Innovation Fund supports digital health solutions targeting specific cohorts struggling to access information about the COVID-19 vaccine and to access a vaccination. This includes, but is not limited to, vulnerable populations such as multicultural communities, the homeless and other hard to reach groups.
The current Innovation Fund offer is designed to improve sustainable healthcare access by approaching providers and/or technology groups and identifying and supporting proposals that enable new and emerging digital health solutions that feed into better ways of working to make Australian healthcare even more efficient and effective for all.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=97b0d441-5214-4997-8e81-862748695b94
Policing the internet: Australia’s developments in regulating content moderation
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP Christine Wong and TOMAS KEMMERY
Australia December 9 2021
From ‘hands off’ to much more interventionist, the last few years have seen proliferating efforts by governments, regulators and courts across the globe to regulate the moderation of online content.
In Australia, the government has convened Parliamentary hearings, regulators have updated their strategic priorities and taken enforcement action and new laws have been proposed or enacted.
The intensity of this regulatory activity is increasing with each year. And we anticipate 2022 to be no different, especially given next year’s wide-ranging Parliamentary inquiry into the impacts of online harms on Australians and the introduction of a new law to unmask anonymous online trolls making harmful defamatory comments.
Though there has been an effort to harmonise some of the existing legislation in this space, particularly through the Online Safety Act, the legal and regulatory framework is still fragmented. This – along with potentially conflicting values driving policymaking (such as safety, speech and privacy) – make it challenging for companies to adopt content moderation practices and procedures that will withstand government, regulatory and public scrutiny.
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Australia’s critical infrastructure ‘uniquely vulnerable’ to attack: Dragos
4:00AM December 14, 2021
Australia’s critical infrastructure businesses are facing an increase in risk from attacks on the nation’s mining and oil and gas industries, according to the chief executive of Dragos, a billion-dollar cybersecurity firm that recently received funding from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Robert Lee, who helped lead the investigation into the 2015 cyber attack on Ukraine’s power grid before founding Dragos, said Australia was currently in a uniquely vulnerable position, given its ongoing efforts to modernise mining and electricity infrastructure.
“What we’re seeing is a transformational period right now in Australia, with geopolitical adversaries, changing electric infrastructure and mining infrastructure. There is a lot going on and that opens you up to espionage and intrusions,” Mr Lee said in an interview.
Ransomware groups were increasingly realising that they could target critical infrastructure sites, given companies would be likely to pay out, he said.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/gov-unveils-australias-first-ever-data-strategy-573988
Gov unveils Australia's first-ever data strategy
By Justin Hendry on Dec 14, 2021 12:32PM
Plans ‘one-stop shop’ for open data.
The federal government will transform data.gov.au into a ‘one-stop shop’ for open data as part of a national data strategy aimed at maximising data use and re-use across the economy.
The whole-of-economy data strategy, released on Tuesday, is the first time the government has outlined its plan for Australia to become a “modern, data-driven society by 2030”.
It complements the recently updated digital strategy, in which the government has pledged to have all of its services available online by 2025, and the digital economy strategy released earlier this year.
With data seen as increasingly valuable to the economy, the four-year strategy aims to maximise its importance by building the capabilities for ethical use, while ensuring data remains protected across its entire lifecycle.
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https://www.nqphn.com.au/events/my-health-record-aged-care-overview
My Health Record in Aged Care: an Overview
Posted Tuesday 14 December 2021 | Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) ADHA Propaganda
Realise the benefits of having access to key health information in My Health Record for your aged care residents.
This webinar is targeted at healthcare providers and administrators who work in the aged care sector and will highlight core features of the My Health Record system. The national system provides clinical information uploaded by a range of providers (GPs, hospitals, pharmacists), which may assist in facilitating care coordination, reduce potential medication misadventures, and ultimately improve health outcomes.
Last updated: Monday 13 December 2021
Event details
Webinar
Thursday 30 June 2022 3pm-4pm
Online
Aged care workers
Healthcare professionals
Contact
Organisation:Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA)
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Advancing digitally enabled hospital-at-home services
By Dr Sharon Hakkennes*
Friday, 10 December, 2021
Virtual care adoption accelerated dramatically in Australia in the wake of COVID-19. This was driven by the need to minimise the risk of the virus spreading, free up bed capacity for acutely unwell patients, and preserve personal protective equipment (PPE).
One area that has seen substantial growth is hospital-at-home models of care. While Australia has had well-established hospital-at-home services for many years, the pandemic has fuelled further interest in this model and is accelerating the development of new models of hospital-at-home care. Many of the traditional barriers, such as clinician understanding of the relevance of the model and patient concerns about being cared for at home, no longer exist.
Gartner predicts that 40% of healthcare providers will shift 20% of hospital beds to the patient’s home by 2025, by offering digitally enabled hospital-at-home services, improving patient experience and outcomes, and reducing costs.
Advances in hospital-at-home technologies
Hospital-at-home services consist of acute-level health care that is enabled by multidisciplinary teams, digital technologies and ancillary services. It is delivered in the homes of patients who would otherwise require admission to an inpatient facility. Advances in virtual care technology are enabling higher acuity patients to be cared for at home and delivery of hospital-at-home models of care at scale.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=faae7d1f-b763-4eb8-8344-ce30057da8c7
How should Australia regulate disinformation and misinformation, and is that even the right question
Gilbert + Tobin Anna Belgiorno-Nettis and Peter Waters
Australia December 8 2021
Three takeaways for lawyers:
- COVID-19 has accelerated many regulatory measures to address harmful false content online. Two of the swiftest examples are Australia and Europe’s disinformation codes of practice. The appropriate scope and enforceability of these codes remains unsettled.
- Australia’s code is the most expansive one yet. The decision to broaden the code’s scope was arguably overinfluenced by the galvanizing yet reductive “infodemic” metaphor. However, the code’s breadth also reflects the reality that harm can come from false information even when it is spread with good intent.
- The unsettled nature of these codes’ scope illustrates how challenging the issue is. Careful code review will be vital to ensure that free speech without fear of persecution, privacy and our “collective sensemaking” in times of crisis are not lost to overregulation.
Introduction
On 2 February 2020, the world was on the cusp of being flung into what will likely be the defining global event of our lifetimes. However, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 2019-nCoV report that day focused on another phenomenon: the infodemic accompanying the pandemic.1
WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus amplified the gravity of this “over-abundance of information” a few days later when he said, “we’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous”.2
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/how-technology-can-help-lower-violence-in-healthcare/59605
10 December 2021
How technology can help lower violence in healthcare
Healthcare workplaces can do a lot more with technology to help manage incidences of violence, but without systemic changes to what remain accepted norms within healthcare workplaces, the problem is likely to keep getting worse.
Although accurate data is hard to obtain, it is apparent that for some years now, violence in healthcare workplaces has been on the rise, and that covid has put that problem on steroids.
Setting aside that our federal government has still not seen fit to create some form of standardised system of data collection and analysis across the country for this significant issue, there are some fairly big challenges to accurately mapping incidences of violence in our healthcare workplaces.
According to Dr Michael Chataway, a chief investigator for QUT Centre for Justice, methods used to examine occupational violence need to consider the dynamic nature of workplaces and the roles performed within them in order to identify the context – and role specific circumstances – that increase the risks and opportunities for violence in the healthcare workplace to occur.
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David.
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