The Productivity Commission Administers A Swift Kick Up The Backside Of The ADHA For Financial Waste!

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Report finds My Health Record ‘plagued’ with poor usability

Chelsea Heaney

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16 May 2024

It also found automation of simple tasks could free up to 30% of clinicians’ time, and data sharing could save $5.4 billion.

A new Productivity Commission report has revealed that investment into digital technology in healthcare and improving the management of My Health Record (MHR) could save more than $5 billion a year.  
 
Increased data sharing in healthcare could save $355 million from fewer duplicated tests alone, it found.
 
The report states that while nine out of 10 GPs now practice digitally, with no paper records, progress is ‘more mixed when it comes to realising the gains of digital information sharing’. 
 
With around 7000 accredited GP clinics and 700 public hospitals in Australia, the report said there is a lag in information access between acute and community care. 
 
‘These providers have invested in different digital systems, each with their own data structures, clinical terminology and standards,’ it states. 
 
‘MHR was intended to be a solution to this siloed data structure, providing a central access point for a patient’s most important health data.  
 
‘But despite an investment of more than $2 billion, it continues to be plagued by incomplete records and poor usability.’ 
 
Repairing this ‘disconnected information management and sharing landscape’ will be challenging, the report highlights, but overall would result in ‘significant payoffs’. 
 
‘In addition to the substantial cost savings it could provide, better data also lays the foundation for other digital health applications, such as remote care and AI,’ it reads. 
 
RACGP Expert Committee – Practice Technology and Management Chair Dr Rob Hosking said GPs often get frustrated when they find key information missing from MHR. 
 
‘It’s a bit of a vicious cycle because once you look a few times and there’s nothing there, you stop looking,’ he told newsGP.  
 
‘But every now and again, there’ll be more information. 
 
‘What will probably eventually drive more uploads is more utilisation by the patients, when they are reviewing their own records and realise that the records are incomplete.’ 
 
The Productivity Commission found data sharing across healthcare providers can also reduce the incidence of adverse events.  
 
‘When GPs do not receive hospital discharge summaries, the risk of an individual being readmitted to hospital within seven days increases by 79%,’ the report reads. 
 
It also says there are major issues in MHR that have created gaps in the system. 
 
‘Consumers need to link their MHR through MyGov to access their records,’ it states.  
 
But as of March 2024, less than one-third, or 6.7 million had done so. 
 
The report also highlights that despite almost all GPs being registered on the system, they can also choose not to enter patient data into MHR, even for individuals that have opted in, meaning ‘the amount of detail contained within an individual’s record varies’. 
 
The report has put forward making MHR uploading mandatory for GPs, but states that ‘getting the information onto the system is only half the challenge – clinicians also need to draw on this valuable information’. 
 
If this is to occur, the Productivity Commission says mandatory uploading will need to be accompanied by ‘changes that allow practitioners to efficiently search large volumes of data and display reports in a way that is easy to read and accessible’. 
 
Commission estimates suggest that around 2% of documents uploaded by healthcare providers are viewed by other healthcare providers. 
 
But Dr Hosking says it is too early to mandate GPs to upload to MHR and adding extra upload times to GPs’ hours would be ‘unacceptable’. 
 
‘At the moment, we are rewarded [through the Practice Incentives Program eHealth Incentive] for uploading a small percentage of our patients’ summaries to MHR, so it’s a carrot rather than a stick,’ he said. 
 
‘If it’s an upload, it’s going to add extra time, if it’s automated, that’s a different story.’ 
 
Dr Hosking said it will become mandatory for pathology and diagnostic imaging to be uploaded onto MHR if legislation passes by the end of the year. 
 
‘That’s going to make a huge difference,’ he said. 
 
Additionally, the Commission says surveys show that administrative tasks are consuming too much of healthcare workers time and should be taken over by AI. 
 
‘AI technology based on large language models has been developed that can transcribe notes during a consultation, draft referral letters and care plans and complete other forms of documentation,’ the report said. 
 
‘AI can also automate labour-intensive tasks such as clinical coding of data, with a recent pilot finding that processing time for a full-time equivalent worker improved by 30% using AI.’ 
 
Dr Hosking agrees that AI can be used efficiently to transcribe consults but is not ready to be used in clinical decision making. 
 
‘Transcription of notes is time consuming for clinicians and GPs, so that’s one area that it can work really well,’ he said. 
 
‘If software is functioning as a medical device it needs to be registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and it has to undergo specific testing and safety clearance.  
 
‘At the moment that’s what the TGA is currently grappling – how to regulate it and make sure that those tools are safe.’ 
 
AI and digital technology for general practice is set to be a talking point at the RACGP 2024 Practice Owners Conference next week. 
 
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Here is the link:

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/report-finds-my-health-record-plagued-with-poor-us

I wonder when the PC is just going to admit the myHR is just a silly, obsolete idea and close the whole thing down, spending the money saved on something more useful?

We can dream I guess….

David.