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30 August 2023
Lift-off: governments sign digital health deal
Reform of Australia’s healthcare system is on the way. See what's in the fine print.
The new Intergovernmental Agreement on National Digital Health 2023-2027 has been signed by the Commonwealth and all eight states and territories, and quietly released into the world.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler was the first to sign, on 31 May, and WA’s Minister for Health Amber-Jade Sanderson was the last, on 26 July. This locks every government into a commitment to make interoperability across sectors and healthcare jurisdictions a reality.
The signatories have committed to an overall financial contribution of $64.5 million per annum split via a cost-shared formula agreed to by the Health Chief Executives Forum in 2022-23.
The Commonwealth will bear 50% of the cost, currently $32.25 million per annum, with the rest split between New South Wales (15.71%), Victoria (12.73%), Queensland (10.22%), WA (5.36%), South Australia (3.51%), Tasmania (1.11%), the ACT (0.88%) and the Northern Territory (0.48%).
Funding for the ADHA and the operation of the MHR will be met by the Commonwealth.
The parties to the agreement are now formally committed to developing and providing the following services:
- Healthcare Identifiers Service – a national system that assigns a unique 16-digit number to people, healthcare providers and healthcare organisations, allowing electronic systems across the national healthcare system to identify them correctly, and associate information with the right patient and provider at the point of care. The Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 and the Healthcare Identifiers Regulations 2020 set the framework and rules for the HI Service.
- The modernisation of My Health Record.
- Implementation of the National Healthcare Interoperability Plan.
- Updating and modernising the National Health Services Directory
- Standards and informatics – the Australian Digital Health Agency’s work on standards and informatics for key products and services to support interoperability, connectivity and solutions for information exchange’.
- ePrescribing comprised of three software components: practice software used to generate the prescription; prescription delivery service (PDS), which incorporates a prescription exchange (PE) and holds the prescription; and pharmacy software that retrieves the e-prescription and is used to dispense the prescription.
- Real Time Prescription Monitoring – a nationally implemented system designed to monitor the prescribing and dispensing of controlled medicines with the aim of reducing their misuse in Australia.
- National Authentication Service for Health – makes it possible for healthcare providers and supporting organisations to securely access and exchange health information, using public key infrastructure certificates.
- National Clinical Terminology Service – easier, consistent and more meaningful use of clinical terminologies in healthcare. It is responsible for managing, developing and distributing national clinical terminologies and related tools and services to the Australian healthcare community to support their adoption, use and maintenance of terminology.
- New standard-related services.
- Healthcare Information Provider Service – a middleware product offering seamless integration with systems including patient administration systems, clinical information systems; laboratory and radiology information systems; aimed primarily at supporting large-scale digital health environments typically found in organisations such as hospitals and diagnostic service providers.
- National Secure Messaging Network – will define a national standard for a messaging solution that can be implemented by clinical information and secure messaging systems to enable secure, reliable and interoperable exchange of messages including text-only messages, stand-alone clinical documents or messages containing text and clinical documents between Australian healthcare providers.
- Provider Connect Australia connects healthcare organisations with their business partners (such as Primary Health Networks, Medicare and health services directories) to streamline updates of the services they provide and the practitioners providing them.
Three specific delivery partners have also been “invited to participate in the governance arrangements to support collaboration and implementation of the Agreement” – the Australian Digital Health Agency, Services Australia, and Healthdirect Australia. Other delivery partners, as identified by the parties to the agreement, can also be invited to participate.
More here:
https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/lift-off-governments-sign-digital-health-deal/97850
I Have to say this seems like a pretty big agenda and a look back a few years hence will be interesting to see how much progress has been made.
It seems to me there is a layer of practicality and hard work here which suggests those doing the work will need all the time they are allocated!
It needs to be pointed out that there is very little new here and what is evident is continuation of work, some of which has been underway for many years. The NASH has been evolving and emerging since Adam was a nipper in short pants!
Does anyone actually remember one of these actually reaching finality?
David.
6 comments:
It's been 11 years since My Health Record went live.
How much has actually changed in digital healthcare since then, apart from being able to make appointments on-line, and getting SMS reminders?
Not a lot. Very few, if any, Australian's have an online comprehensive and accurate record of their healthcare.
Have costs come Down? Are waiting lists shorter? Is the standard of healthcare, especially in rural Australia, any better? Services Australia have a register of vaccinations, but that's a drop in the ocean.
The only thing that seems to have grown is the governments' list of things they are promising to do.
You have to wonder if they believe their own rhetoric. Brings to mind the old adage, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
My money is on the squid. This really is lacking in every way. They seem ten years behind and still living off the work load out 2@ years ago. No recognition of change modes of care, service delivery or challenges facing healthcare, where is the national debate? Stakeholder forums? Even the standards seems retrofitting rather the laying the ground work.
Perhaps the jurisdictions are preparing to cut ADHA loose and reform a COAG funding entity to address their shared, connected health challenges. The HI service and messaging infrastructure are probably useful, but the MYHR does nothing to solve state or local CIO challenges.
It’s been 6 going on 7 years and the ADHA experiment has more than likely reach its best before date.
The funding amounts and distributions can now be summarised thus:-
Quote: "Funding for the ADHA and the operation of the MHR will be met by the Commonwealth."
Quote: "The signatories have committed to an overall financial contribution of $64.5 million per annum" where "The Commonwealth will bear 50% being $32.25 million per annum".
In effect the per annum share contributed by the States and Territories is:
NSW $10.13 million
VIC $8.21 million
QLD $6.6 million
WA $3.46 million
SA $2.2 million
TAS $0.72 million
ACT $0.57 million
NT $0.31 million
The Federal Budget 2023-24 allocated:
• $429 million over two years to modernise My Health Record (Ave $214.5 million each year).
• $325.7 million over four years (Ave $81.4 million each year), and $79.9 million a year ongoing, for the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA).
https://www.itnews.com.au/news/the-full-list-of-it-projects-in-the-2023-24-federal-budget-594172?eid=1&edate=20230510
Ian, thank you for compiling those numbers. They are quite illuminating.
When combined the total annual spend amounts to at least $64.5M + $214.5M + $81.4M Total $288.4M!
Correction to - Total $360.4
ie. $7 Million every week for 2 years
and the Return on Investment (ROI) will be
- precisely what?
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