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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The Xmas torpor has well and truly arrived and little seems to be happening. A few I did find below!
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=55c0d1bf-02b4-44d4-9367-262a477a3cf9
Changes to TGA regulation of personal medical devices
Australia December 2 2021
We review the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s new framework for regulating custom-made medical devices
In brief
- On 25 February 2021, a new framework for regulating custom-made medical devices (CMMDs) in Australia commenced.
- The framework includes a new definition for CMMDs and many previously exempt CMMDs may now be required to be included in the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) before they can be lawfully supplied in Australia.
- Manufacturers and suppliers of CMMDs should assess their position to ensure they comply with the new regulatory framework.
Background
Prior to the amendments to the therapeutic goods laws in Australia, a CMMD was a device made for a particular individual specifically in accordance with the request of a health professional. The request was required to specify the design characteristics or describe how the device was to be constructed. The definition also encompassed a medical device used by a health professional where the device met the special needs of the health professional’s practice. While the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) was required to be notified of the kinds of CMMDs to be manufactured and sold, CMMDs were exempt from inclusion in the ARTG.
The exemption was intended to only apply to ‘special cases’ in which there was no medical device included in the ARTG that could meet the special needs of a particular patient. However, between 2017 and 2019, the TGA consulted on proposed changes to the medical device regulation framework in Australia and found that the ease and low cost of preparing CMMDs had drastically decreased over the last few years. As a result, the manufacture and supply of CMMDs had grown exponentially. The TGA found that there had been an unexpected reliance on the CMMD exemption in the regulatory framework increasing the risk profile of CMMDs, from low to high, creating a need for more stringent regulatory obligations.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/telehealth-items-expiry-date-looming/59497
9 December 2021
Telehealth items’ expiry date looming
By Leanne Akiki
An announcement on the future of telehealth is expected in coming weeks before the current item numbers are set to expire on 31 December.
Medicare-funded telehealth has seen general practice through the pandemic, since its introduction in March 2020. But it’s looking more likely that the federal government’s preference will be to restrict access to patients who are enrolled at a practice.
At the Department of Health’s weekly briefing and Q&A today, First Assistant Secretary, Covid-19 Primary Care Response Dr Lucas de Toca said of the item numbers: “We understand it’s absolutely critical and the government will be making an announcement very, very soon.”
In response to questions, the DoH told TMR that an announcement on telehealth would be made before the expiry date of 31 December.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/why-alphabet-soup-discharge-summaries-menace
Why the alphabet soup in discharge summaries is a menace
With the typical summary containing 13 different short forms, GP registrar Dr Anna Coghlan says confusion is inevitable
7th December 2021
Dr Anna Coghlan recently exposed the alphabet soup frequently served up in hospital discharge summaries written for GPs.
As a junior doctor and now a GP registrar in Brisbane, she was the lead researcher on a recent study showing that a local hospital's typical discharge letter had some 13 different abbreviations on average.
The figure was identified after she and two colleagues trawled through 800 discharge summaries issued over a single week, with one example containing 86 short forms.
AusDoc: You found the average discharge summary contained 13 different abbreviations and 17 short forms in total.
Dr Coghlan: Yes, 13 seemed like a lot initially. But when you start reading discharge summaries more closely, you realise just how ubiquitous abbreviations are. That’s true of almost all medical documentation.
The thing to keep in mind is that most won't be confusing. Things like GP and IV can be useful as shorthand, and we aren’t suggesting there is any problem with using abbreviations that everyone understands.
But that isn’t always true, and many abbreviations are being used that are downright confusing.
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How AI is shaping the future of oral wellness
By Dr Fadi Yassmin
Wednesday, 08 December, 2021
As technology continues to evolve at a rapid rate, what was once the stuff of science fiction is now a daily reality for healthcare practitioners across a wide range of fields. In the field of dentistry, artificial intelligence (AI) is not just revolutionising patient care, it is also providing us tools to create better outcomes for patients.
Put simply, AI uses machine learning to analyse, diagnose and suggest the most appropriate treatment options. This technology works by looking at new data and mapping it against the knowledge or similar data it has accumulated from other patients.
As practitioners, we do this countless times every day — drawing on our years of experience and training to diagnose a problem and then determine the type of treatment that we believe will give the best results. AI is able to do this faster and more accurately than any human. It also has the advantage of being able to compare new patient data with hundreds of thousands or even millions of similar cases — far more than a humble human doctor could ever treat and remember in their lifetime.
While AI is unlikely to replace the expertise of a trained healthcare professional, it has terrific potential to complement and support the work we do in our practice. Perhaps even more significantly, it offers the scope to transform the way we engage patients to participate in their own treatment pathways.
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AI tech to assist clinicians in wound assessment and care
Wednesday, 08 December, 2021
Coviu, a telehealth spin-out from CSIRO, is developing a digital toolkit for telehealth wound care alongside CSIRO, The University of Sydney, Australian Unity, Western NSW Primary Health Network and The University of Technology Sydney.
The cost of chronic wounds is equivalent to more than $3.5 billion, approximately 2% of national healthcare expenditure, with more than 400,000 Australians estimated to suffer at any time.
The new suite of digital tools will provide a one-stop shop for clinicians caring for wounds. Mobile imaging, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), will allow practitioners to remotely analyse and monitor wounds over time. From a video feed, clinicians will assess vital sign metrics, such as a patient’s heart and respiratory rate.
With remote access to a greater breadth of wound data at the click of a button the information will help practitioners make decisions about how to manage wounds, including raising red flags when there are significant changes which might indicate infection, the body’s reaction to the wound or a reaction to medication.
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Aussies still using COVIDSafe but it only found two potential contacts during lockdowns
Registrations for COVIDSafe bubbling along at thousands per week with spikes whenever an outbreak occurs.
Written by Chris Duckett, APAC Editor
on December 9, 2021 | Topic: Innovation
The Australian government's COVIDSafe app that costs around AU$200,000 a month to keep running, only found two potential close contacts of positive COVID cases in the period from 16 May to 15 November 2021.
During those six months, both Sydney and Melbourne were in extended lockdowns with the highest daily COVID case numbers the country had experienced in the entire pandemic, and much of the rest of Australia dipped in and out of lockdown conditions.
In that timeframe, 13 people uploaded to the system, 330 new handshakes were added, for a total of nine potential encounters.
Since the inception of the app, it has received 792 uploads, 1.65 million handshakes, and 2,829 potential contacts.
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https://itwire.com/deals/dell-technologies-to-provide-tech-equipment-for-ehealth-queensland.html
Friday, 03 December 2021 12:09
Dell Technologies to provide tech equipment for eHealth Queensland
Dell Technologies bags a contract with eHealth Queensland, the information technology support service for Queensland Health, to provide the state’s sixteen hospital and health services including workers in the Department of Health with PCs, tablets, notebooks, workstations, all-in-ones, rugged devices, and monitors.
The deal comes timely as Queensland Health standardises its tech service.
The equipment will support over 90,000 healthcare employees to render service to a population of more than five million.
Dell Technologies says the contract is under Queensland Education’s DET SOA 84891 (Category One – Supply and Support of ICT Hardware) and one of the largest commercial client deals for the company in Australia.
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https://www.hinz.org.nz/news/589600/Health-data-strategy-and-action-plan-released.htm
Health data strategy and action plan released
Thursday, 9 December 2021
NEWS
The Ministry of Health has released
a strategy and two-year action plan to improve the way health data is
collected, managed, shared and used.
Actions include establishing a national collections data service, developing
equity measures for data standards and creating ways for people to authorise
others to access their health information.
Ministry of Health deputy director-general data and digital, Shayne Hunter says
the health and disability system collects a lot of data but needs to be more
effective at connecting this with other data and “using insights to provide the
best possible health care or to ensure the system is equitable, sustainable and
performing well”.
“Data is often duplicated, it’s not always digitised which makes it harder to
access, and there are variations in the way information is recorded,” he says.
The Ministry has published a Data and Information Strategy for Health and Disability and two-year Roadmap outlining a set of
actions across five priority areas. These are; data foundations, equity and
data sovereignty, consumer participation, people and leadership, data and
information accessibility.
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South Island saves 15 years of patient travel with telehealth
Tuesday, 7 December 2021
NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
South Island DHBs have avoided more than 9 million
kilometres of patient travel and more than 15 years of patient travel time by
switching to telehealth for some outpatient appointments over the past year, a
new interactive dashboard reveals.
By avoiding a significant amount of travel, the DHBs also avoided 2.4 million
kilos of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere.
Launched in November, The South Island Regional Telehealth Dashboard was
developed in collaboration with the five South Island DHBs to track progress
across the South Island and support health services to connect and share
resources.
The tool was modelled on a local dashboard created by Nelson Marlborough Health
and pulls data from the National Non-Admitted Patient Collection (NNPAC).
It shows that between July 2020 to August 2021 more than 8 million minutes of
patient travel time was avoided by people being able to attend hospital
outpatient appointments via phone or video.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/anz/new-zealand-looks-initially-release-hira-mid-2022
New Zealand looks to initially release Hira by mid-2022
The first phase of release will make available basic patient information that solutions providers can access.
By Adam Ang
December 10, 2021 01:48 AM
Hira, the national health information platform by the New Zealand Ministry of Health, is targeted to be publicly launched by the middle of next year.
In a public webinar on Friday, Darren Douglass, the ministry's general manager for digital strategy and investment, data, and digital, shared a tentative timeline of the release of the platform.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
The first release in May next year aims to provide access to basic patient information stored in the National Health Index and from health providers. This also includes COVID-19 immunisation and test results, leveraging My Health Account. Solutions providers that cater to vulnerable communities, such as small non-profit organisations, are targeted to be its first users.
The second release in June will make available the ability to update user's contact details through the platform, as well as the ability to update affiliation details, especially for the Maori community. Contract tracing services will also be introduced in this phase.
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https://www.afr.com/street-talk/alcidion-acquires-silverlink-raising-55-million-20211207-p59fhz
Alcidion acquires Silverlink, raising $55 million
Anthony Macdonald, Yolanda Redrup and Kanika Sood
Dec 7, 2021 – 12.27pm
Healthcare informatics company Alcidion is raising $55 million to fund the acquisition of UK patient administration software (PAS) company Silverlink.
The acquisition extends Alcidion’s capability into PAS and is fitting with its vision of becoming a cloud-based modular electronic patient record.
Silverlink services the UK’s National Health Service and has forecast $7.8 million revenue from existing contracts for the year to April 30, 2022 and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $4.8 million.
It’s the second UK-based acquisition Alcidion has made in the last nine months, having also acquired patient flow management software company ExtraMed in April.
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Friday, 10 December 2021 11:33
InterSystems TrakCare solution streamlines Auckland District Health Board’s management system
Auckland District Health Board and data technology company InterSystems have developed a patient administration system that will enable proactive communication among care providers across the region and in the community.
The InterSystems TrakCare solution will streamline business processes and workflows to replace three patient management systems. It will also feature new capabilities such as customer-centric appointment bookings.
InterSystems says the staff will benefit from a modern, easy to use interface, more efficient workflows, and access from their mobile devices.
Implementation of the cloud-based system will commence in January 2022. It will serve multiple facilities including Auckland City Hospital, Starship Children’s Hospital, and community organisations to support an estimated 145,000 inpatient and one million outpatient visits per year.
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https://www.smh.com.au/money/saving/5g-v-nbn-new-battleground-for-fast-internet-20211210-p59gk6.html
5G v NBN: New battleground for fast internet
December 11, 2021 — 10.00pm
Australians might soon find out who was right about the internet: Kevin Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull.
A decade ago, when Mr Rudd was prime minister and building the new National Broadband Network, Mr Turnbull, as opposition spokesman for communications, predicted that the NBN would become an endangered species because of the eventual arrival of wireless 5G internet.
Fast-forward to 2021 and 5G internet access is now a reality.
The big-three telcos have rolled out their 5G networks to as many as three-quarters of their customers and are also now selling 5G internet plans, too.
Vodafone even came out recently with a 5G plan with a heavy discount to prise people away from the NBN, which it says is less profitable for them.
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NBN replaced over 21,000 FttC connection devices in six weeks to mid-November
Storms keep frying the innards of the NBN Co Connection Devices, with almost 100,000 needing replacement since December 2020.
Written by Chris Duckett, APAC Editor
on December 10, 2021 | Topic: Networking
When summer weather begins to hit the Australian east coast, those on fibre-to-the-curb (FttC) connections need to brace for some electronics frying thanks to lightning activity.
In an update to the numbers it revealed to Senate Estimates in May, where it had replaced almost 48,000 FttC connection devices across November 2020 to March 2021, NBN said it has now replaced 99,226 NBN Co Connection Devices (NCD) from 1 December 2020 to 11 November 2021.
"Between 1 October 2021 and 11 November 2021 NBN Co has replaced a total of 21,424 devices. This includes replacements as a result of multiple severe weather events across the eastern states of Australia during October," it said.
"FttC NCDs ... can be replaced for a wide variety of reasons, including customers removing the device when they move house, new devices being automatically provided when a customer changes providers, and accidental damage in premises."
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‘Mission creep’: NBN Co picks another fight with telcos
By Zoe Samios
December 10, 2021 — 12.01am
TPG Telecom and Vocus Group have accused NBN Co of creeping into their patch after the company in charge of the National Broadband Network released a proposal that would allow it to connect businesses directly with third-party data centres.
The proposal, outlined in a construct paper by NBN Co, has reopened old wounds with telcos, which have warned that connecting business customers to the centres would pit NBN Co in direct competition with them, and would be a waste of money.
TPG Telecom said in a response to the paper, seen by this masthead, that it had “serious concerns” about the proposal to overbuild existing commercial networks.
“It is unclear to TPG how NBN could consider this investment to be either efficient or consistent with its legislated mandate to provide connectivity to premises,” it said. “It is also difficult to see how there could be a policy justification for NBN to overbuild in what is a highly competitive and well-served market, when it is advocating for billions more in taxpayer funding to upgrade its residential networks.”
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NBN Co says not 'all' brownfields premises will have attainable 25Mbps speed by the end of 2022
By Ry Crozier on Dec 10, 2021 7:14AM
In response to Labor questions.
NBN Co said there would not be a time that “all” premises in brownfields areas would have access to minimum line speeds of 25/5Mbps before the end of 2022, owing to a variety of factors that could impact an end-to-end connection.
The response to Labor senators continued a long-running series of questions that sought to understand how many premises are not capable of minimum 25Mbps line speeds, particularly now that the network has been declared "built and fully operational".
The 2016 statement of expectations (SOE) given to NBN Co by the government stated that “the network will provide peak wholesale download data rates (and proportionate upload rates) of at least 25 megabits per second to all premises, and at least 50 megabits per second to 90 per cent of fixed line premises as soon as possible.”
The current SOE does not restate these speeds, though it notes that NBN Co - as the default statutory infrastructure provider or SIP in most parts of Australia - “must meet legal obligations, including in relation to minimum service speed and network performance requirements.”
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/optus-trials-mm-wave-5g-at-indoor-play-centre-in-melbourne-573743
Optus trials mm-Wave 5G at indoor play centre in Melbourne
By Ry Crozier on Dec 8, 2021 1:16PM
Hopes to make the service commercially available "soon".
Optus is hoping to bring to market a 5G home internet service "soon" that offers multi-gigabit speeds, with a proof-of-concept currently underway at an indoor children’s play centre in Melbourne.
Managing director of marketing and revenue Matt Williams told an Optus business briefing that the proof-of-concept location is sharing its connection to power customer wi-fi, with strong early speed results achieved.
The proof-of-concept service uses millimetre-wave spectrum, and is what Optus will ultimately brand as “5G Max”.
While the telco had first revealed it was running a proof-of-concept late last month, the identity of the customer had not been disclosed.
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How 5G will transform health care
By Louise Hyland, CEO, Australian Mobile Telecommunications
Association (AMTA)
Friday, 03 December, 2021
During COVID-19 lockdowns across the world we saw many new examples of mobile technology used within the health sector, including numerous people using telehealth for the first time.
With 5G networks being switched on across the country, the connectivity of 5G is set to continue to transform the healthcare system and how we manage our own health in the wake of the pandemic. 5G, which is the fifth generation of mobile technology, offers safe, high-speed connections with low lag and increased capacity, which will make health technology more efficient and reliable, helping to save lives and improve the wellbeing of Australians.
5G networks will support the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), critical medical innovations and artificial intelligence (AI) through remote access, real-time monitoring, fast data transfer and high-capacity data processing. These technological advancements will in turn help support our aging population, close the divide between rural and metropolitan healthcare services, provide remote access to world-class doctors and surgeons, and help more Australians maintain and improve their health.
Looking to the post-COVID future, the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA) has identified five ways that 5G will drive this digital transformation in health.
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Enjoy!
David.
2 comments:
Here's another article on Covidsafe
COVIDSafe not updated for Delta variant until five months after first case
https://www.innovationaus.com/covidsafe-not-updated-for-delta-variant-until-five-months-after-first-case/
It has this classic spin that shows just how divorced from reality the Department of Health is:
"COVIDSafe remains part of the suite of tools available for public health officials to use in contact tracing. COVIDSafe has made a positive contribution to identifying and verifying COVID-19 contacts and, in combination with other tools, plays a role in supporting contact tracing processes by jurisdictions," the report said.
Surprised they left out the contributions toward climate change and making the bid for the Olympic Games a success.
I am puzzled how this is making a difference, each state and territory has there own, you need to use the jurisdiction specific one when in that jurisdiction.
Does the Federal one replace the need?
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