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 Digital Health space is pretty much dead but the COVID19 space is pumping. With 3000 now in hospital it is hardly going well right now!
I wonder when the political blame game will kick off?
See – for example:
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Gnullingoo Mia Aged Care taps Core Schedule for staff scheduling
The Central Adelaide Local Health Network has also recently rolled out the same rostering solution in South Australia.
By Adam Ang
January 06, 2022 02:02 AM
Gnullingo Mia Aged Care, a newly set up aged care facility in Western Australia, has signed a contract to roll out Core Schedule's staff scheduling solution.
Serving the Gascoyne area, the 38-bed health centre is located at the Carnarvon Health Campus and is a part of the WA Country Health Service.
WHY IT MATTERS
According to a press release, Core Schedule provides a suite of cloud-based work roster tools for staff in emergency departments, hospitals, medical training programmes, and urgent care clinics. It manages complex rules and requests, cutting down the time spent on rostering and allocating staff, fixing mistakes and making last-minute changes.
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https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/doh-heeds-racgp-advice-and-defers-new-30-20-phone
DoH heeds RACGP advice and defers new 30/20 phone consultation rule
The prescribed pattern of services rule will be deferred until the middle of 2022 to help GPs deal with the COVID pandemic.
04 Jan 2022
News
The college has welcomed a Federal Government’s decision to
defer a new rule designed to limit the number of telehealth phone consultations
GPs can carry out.
The new 30/20 prescribed pattern of services rule was announced in December
2021 when the Department of Health (DoH) outlined details of how telehealth
would become a permanent feature of the health system.
It would have meant any GP giving more than 30 daily telephone consultations on
20 days or more during a 12-month period would be referred to the Professional
Services Review (PSR).
The new rule was due to come into effect from 1 January 2022; however, it has
now been deferred at least until 1 July due to rapidly escalating COVID cases
and the reliance many general practices are likely to have on phone
consultations.
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https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/anz/australia-ends-support-128-telehealth-items
Australia ends support for 128 telehealth items
Health leaders have since warned of some huge consequences of the change.
By Adam Ang
January 05, 2022 02:21 AM
Some changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule for telehealth items in Australia – including the termination of 128 items, amendment of 17 items, and the addition of two more items – have taken effect this week.
WHAT IT'S ABOUT
The changes come following the recommendations by the MBS Review Taskforce. In a statement, the Department of Health claimed the changes in telehealth items, along with items for COVID-19, bulk billing incentives, surgery and others, will "ensure services are clinically appropriate; reflect modern clinical practice; improve quality of care and safety for patients; and increase access to services".
Among those removed are video telehealth items that were introduced in 2011 for remote areas and specific settings and offered by GPs, medical specialists, midwives and nurse practitioners – except those provided by Aboriginal health workers, practice nurses and optometrists.
The 2002 telepsychiatry items will be replaced by video telehealth items introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, while inpatient telehealth items introduced in September 2021 will no longer be available.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/victoria-sa-qld-to-mandate-rapid-test-reporting-20220106-p59mbx
Victoria, SA, Qld to mandate rapid test reporting
Hannah Wootton Reporter
Jan 6, 2022 – 2.43pm
It will be mandatory to report positive rapid antigen tests in Victoria from Friday, and Queensland and South Australia are working on implementing similar requirements, as pathology systems buckle under the growing backlog of unprocessed PCR tests.
The changes follow the Morrison government refusing to implement a national system for recording rapid antigen test (RAT) results despite public health experts warning that failing to do so may compromise case number modelling and care for those infected.
Victoria has recorded 21,997 new COVID-19 cases and six further deaths overnight, with 631 people in hospital and 51 in ICU.
Under the new Victorian and South Australian rules, positive rapid tests will impose the same isolation requirements as positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests on those with COVID-19, as well as affording them the same care and financial support.
“What is clear is that we are in a new phase of this pandemic, and a new phase of how we need to respond,” Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said.
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WA mask mandate extended in wake of growing backpacker COVID-19 cluster
Posted 03/01/2022
Western Australians will be required to continue to wear masks indoors until at least Friday, as the state records another two cases believed to be linked to an ongoing Delta outbreak.
Key points:
- Masks must continue to be worn indoors in Perth until Friday
- Hospitality restrictions will be abolished from tomorrow as planned
- Another two COVID-19 cases have been linked to the city's Delta outbreak
The new cases are a 20-year-old unvaccinated male backpacker and his 24-year-old vaccinated female housemate.
Both cases are believed to be linked to the current Delta outbreak, and were infectious in the community.
Aldi in Cannington has now been identified as an exposure site, with more sites expected to be named.
…..
The quickest way to obtain the documents is to download your COVID-19 digital certificate and immunisation history statement using your Medicare online account, Express Plus Medicare mobile app, or My Health record.
This certificate can be added to wallet apps on your mobile device.
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https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/hips
Healthcare Information Provider Service (HIPS)
What is HIPS?
The Healthcare Information Provider Service (HIPS) is a middleware product offering seamless integration with systems including:
- Patient administration systems
- Clinical information systems
- Laboratory and radiology information systems.
It is aimed primarily at supporting large-scale digital health environments typically found in organisations such as hospitals and diagnostic service providers; however, it is also suitable for direct integration with digital health products.
How does it work?
HIPS is a standalone middleware solution which integrates directly with the hospital’s clinical information system. By connecting the Healthcare Identifiers Service to search for and retrieve patient national healthcare identifiers, HIPS enables the following:
- Connection to the My Health Record system to:
- determine if a patient has a digital record;
- view a patient’s digital health record;
- post clinical documents into this record including:
- discharge summaries
- prescription and dispense records
- event summaries
- shared health summaries
- specialist letters
- pathology reports
- diagnostic imaging reports
- Dynamically convert HL7(R) v2 ORU messages to CDA documents to upload pathology reports and diagnostic imaging reports to a patient’s My Health Record.
Training and resources
Support – For IT & implementation of HIPS Mobile For hospital IT teams wanting to find information on how to get started and to enable HIPS Mobile visit the Agency's Collaborate HIPS work space. For all other enquiries, please contact your Partnership Manager. Seamlessly integrate your hospital and laboratory systems with My Health Record and the Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service.
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AUS Practice Management Software – Physiotherapy/Psychology Clinic System Launch
By Marketers Media
Published January 6, 2022
Power Diary – Australia, the Australian branch of the international medical practice management software platform, has launched a new update tailored specifically for local physiotherapy and psychology clinics.
Ballarat Central, Australia – January 6, 2022 —
The new software is designed to help clinics in these fields streamline their bookings, referrals, and patient systems by migrating them into one intuitive and easy-to-use platform.
More information is available at https://www.powerdiary.com/au/what-is-practice-management-software or https://www.powerdiary.com/au/profession/psychology-practice-management-software/
The launch coincides with the latest data from the Australian Medical Association (AMA). In their study of 20,000 physicians across nearly 30 specialties, they discovered that a third of physicians spend 20 hours or more a week on paperwork and administrative tasks, with another 40% spending 10-19 hours on administration.
As the ongoing Covid-19 crisis places increasing demand on both primary care and specialist services like physiotherapy and psychology, more doctors than ever across Australia are reporting severe fatigue and burnout.
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Thursday, 06 January 2022 00:19
Withings revolutionises home health monitoring with its new connected body scan smart scale
Withings continues its mission of bringing smart, easy to use, clinical-grade medical technology to the home user, with its new Body Scan announced today.
The Body Scan evolves Withing's existing smart scale category, bringing a connected health station to the home helping users get a handle on their health with the ability to manage vitals and access personal health plans based on behavioural science.
Measurements include weight management as you'd expect from a scale, but goes way beyond - it assesses nerve activity and heart rhythm using a six-lead ECG, provides a daily analysis of biomarkers associated with common health conditions, can monitor segmental body composition, heart rate, and vascular age, sweat glands in the feet, and other items.
Segmental body composition is often used by health experts and sports professionals to identify the smallest changes in body composition to identify fat mass distribution, muscle imbalances, and other items. What gets measured gets improved, and now Withings democratises body composition technology bringing it out of the sports lab and into the home.
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How is Australia revolutionising its telehealth system?
January 03, 2022 12:17 AM AEDT
Manisha Author
Shwetambri Chauhan Reviewer
Highlights
- Telehealth services enable people living in remote areas to stay connected with their healthcare providers despite geographical barriers.
- Australia has increased focus on developing telehealth services to help people access clinical advice and other healthcare services.
- Aussies have grown preference for audio or video-enabled consultation instead of face-to-face consultations in clinics.
Staying deprived of medical services due to remote location or lack of medical establishments in areas of sparse population were common occurrences in the past. However, the upturn in technology and striking developments in the field of healthcare have eliminated such uncertainties and introduced people to the concept of telehealth.
While it may sound novel to some, it has become one of the well-embraced healthcare facilities today in Australia and worldwide, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Do read: Virtual care is booming amid pandemic: A glance at the pros and cons of telehealth
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Enjoy!
David.
6 comments:
The Government claims over 95% of Australia s have a My Health Record. Why then doesn't the Government mandate that all RAT test results be uploaded onto the MyHR? It's a small job to provide the RAT interface into the MyHR.
Over 95%?? Where is that stated? Seems a bit of a leap from less than 91% not long ago.
Have they employed cyber ninjas to recount the conscripts?
https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/my-health-record/statistics
@January 12, 2022 8:28 AM
What that page actually says is that 95% of all records have data in them
IMHO, that data is probably due to vaccination status.
AFAIK, the participation rate is still just under 90%.
95% based on 2020 (published) population would mean there would be 24.7 million records. Either way it is an example of data being used to manipulate perceptions.
The federal government both elected officials and employees are proving to be far from an effective decision making leadership group. Never have so few cussed so much grief to so many. We are fortunate that so many health workers and others are going above and beyound to keep us safe, warm and feed. At least they are not being taken advantage of.
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