I Am Sure This Conversation Rather Slipped Through To The Keeper!

I spotted this last week:

Senate Estimates

Community Affairs Legislation Committee
10/11/2022
Estimates
HEALTH AND AGED CARE PORTFOLIO
Australian Digital Health Agency

{15:56]

CHAIR: Senator Pocock, you have the call.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: Thanks for your time today, yesterday and, potentially, the day before. I've just got a few questions for the Australian Digital Health Agency.

Prof. Murphy : Chair, it's 5 am in Dublin and we would like Professor Skerritt to be able to go to bed. Are there any more TGA questions?

CHAIR: I will confirm that in the tea break. I understand that we've got about one minute before we get to the break. I'm doing my best to release you, Professor Skerritt, and I will get some advice to you as quickly as possible.

Dr Skerritt : Thank you.

Prof. Murphy : Thank you.

CHAIR: Senator Pocock.

Prof. Murphy : In relation to the Digital Health Agency, we'll get the experts to the table.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: To start with, I'm interested in whether you know how much the My Health Record system has cost to date.

Ms Cattermole : There are probably several elements to the question, because the My Health Record system is sort of part of a national digital health infrastructure that we've been running for a decade now. I can sort of provide you, if you'd like, with the broad elements of what that looks like roughly. It's hard to sort of disaggregate exactly all the pieces, but I can walk you through—

Senator DAVID POCOCK: If you want to take it on notice and just send through the info, that would be great.

Ms Cattermole : I can happily do that. I can give you the sort of broad brush but, given the time, I'm happy to take it on notice. The My Health Record has a number of elements around it, including authentication processes and clinical terminologies, that together make up the system. I can do that now or I can do it on notice, given the time.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: On notice is fine.

Ms Cattermole : Thanks, Senator.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: It is my understanding that, when it was set up, one of the things that was talked about was how it would be useful in an emergency situation.

Ms Cattermole : Yes.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: Do you have stats on what percentage of ED doctors are actually looking at records on the My Health Record?

Ms Cattermole : I do, indeed, and thank you. That's exactly right: that is, indeed, one of the things we've seen and we're seeing it more and more as, sadly, we've been facing a number of emergencies in recent years; we're starting to see that use and uptick. I can take you through some specifics and then provide you with more detail, as you wish.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: That would be great; thank you.

Ms Cattermole : If you take, for example, the Lismore floods or things like the moment the Queensland border opened, the uptick in the use and viewing of the record—for example, by pharmacists who needed to support people who may not have had their medications information—went up exponentially at those moments to sort of 400 per cent and 500 per cent. So it upticked at the moment that it was needed and then moved back to more normal levels once that emergency was not there. More broadly, over the last two and a half years, given the circumstances that we've had with the pandemic, we've seen exponential growth in the viewing use of the record not only by consumers but also by clinicians right across the health system, and that's quite sustained. We've seen consumers, for example, up by sort of 200 per cent and GPs up by 140 per cent. I can give you more detail, but we've certainly seen that emergency environment has created a significant shift.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: Do you have the percentage of visits to the emergency department where the doctor is looking that up?

Ms Cattermole : I've got public hospitals and so, yes, that's a pretty good proxy. Certainly, about 95 per cent of public hospitals are registered for the record. I'm sure that I can quickly find you exactly what the percentage is in use. Year on year, in terms of viewing of the record, public hospitals are up 160 per cent.

Sena tor DAVID POCOCK: Starting from?

Ms Cattermole : I'd have to take on notice, I think, where they were before. I've got some raw numbers for you, but the raw numbers can be a bit hard, because they're just humongous. For example, there was a viewing of 1,700,000 documents over the last 12 months. They're hard to get hold of.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: I'd love to know the proportion of just how many—

Ms Cattermole : What does look better is the percentage increase, and that's because you can see it.

Mr McCabe : We've seen 22.2 million views in the last 12 months, which was up from 8.6 million views in the previous years in the public hospital context.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: I appreciate the numbers, but I guess that I'm interested in this: for every 100 visits to emergency, how many of those patients have their—

Ms Cattermole : I'd have to take that on notice.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: That would be great; thank you. The other thing I'm interested in is diagnostic imaging providers.

Ms Cattermole : Yes.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: Having a look on the website, I can see that only two providers in the ACT are registered on the My Health Record. Do you know how many are registered nationally and are being integrated into the system?

Ms Cattermole : I've certainly got some increases here. I'll just see if I can give you diagnostic imaging providers.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: Chair, how am I going for time?

CHAIR: Senator Pocock, you have a few minutes in your call, but we'd be grateful if you were as efficient as you could be.

Mr Creech : In relation to the exact number of diagnostic imaging providers that are uploading, I'll take that on notice. The thing that we need to keep in mind, though, is that proportionally a significant number of diagnostic imaging providers are registered and connected with the My Health Record. They don't always upload, though, and that is one of the issues that we are and have been working through over a number of years. We're working hard at the moment to drive that use specifically with the providers themselves. It's the same as with pathology. Uploads are lower than we'd like; they are growing and have grown significantly over the last few years, especially during the COVID period, but not as significantly as with pathology. With pathology, it has really boomed in the last couple of years. But DI has a little bit of work to go, and we're looking to get as many of those into the system as possible. Especially in the ACT, there are two providers that don't upload as much as we'd like.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: I'd love, just on notice, any sort of information that you can give us to try to—

Ms Cattermole : Yes. I've got them here but together, so I'll disaggregate them for you.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: Thank you. Finally, because I know that we're running very short—

CHAIR: No, please, Senator Pocock.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: I'm just wondering what progress is being made in getting rid of fax machines in healthcare; is there an end in sight?

Ms Cattermole : An excellent question.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: I note that a few coronial inquiries have actually pointed out that fax machines were a contributing factor.

Prof. Murphy : It is a really big challenge. Doctors are one of the last bastions of the fax machine and mainly because secure electronic imaging was the issue, and I think that's what we've all been working on.

Mr McCabe : I think it's probably worth saying that, in the health system, there are probably areas that are getting better. For example, primary care or general practice is probably reducing dramatically the use of fax machines. But we've got to do a lot more work in areas like specialists, who don't tend to use as many digital platforms as we'd like them to. So, it's an area of focus in specific areas.

Senator RUSTON: Senator Pocock, I've heard on very good authority that they've got to get rid of fax machines but at the same time they've got to write legibly.

Senator DAVID POCOCK: Thank you. Perhaps you could provide on notice the percentage of GPs or other providers who are still using fax machines?

Prof. Murphy : I think we can certainly provide something on the proportion of GPs who are now fully—

Senator DAVID POCOCK: And potentially, given the coronial findings, whether there is a strategy to find a secure, acceptable and workable way to do it all?

Prof. Murphy : Yes.

----- End Extract.

Here is the link:

https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22committees%2Festimate%2F26273%2F0012%22

It seems Senator Pocock has more interests than Industrial Relations. Good to see a few questions on just how useful the #myHR is actually being for all that money!

It was fun seeing Ms Cattermole being the usual public servant and either not answering the question or putting the question on notice so we don’t all get to see the answer. Same sort of  rubbish that we have seen from Tim Kelsey etc before him.

I think his myHR questions are well asked but on the issue of the use of faxes I think close analysis would show the incidents were not the fault of the fax machines but the way the humans used them (not checking receipt etc.)

I hope he keeps pushing on the #myHR costs and benefits!

Those who read all know how better outcomes and information flows could be achieved via other technologies than the #myHR!

David.