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
Not much happening except the RACP debacle - fire the CEO I say - and the Global Gabfest where Australia suggests it is an a position to offer advice to others in Global Digital Health! Put your own house in order I would suggest - but then I would say that!
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https://www.itwire.com/government-tech-policy/81803-data-breach-law-takes-effect-on-thursday.html
Data breach law takes effect on Thursday
Australia's data breach notification law takes effect this Thursday and new resources for the public have been released by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner before the law comes into force.
The NDB scheme makes it mandatory for Australian Government agencies and other bodies that are obliged to comply to secure personal information under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and notify individuals who are affected by data breaches that are likely to result in serious harm.
One new resource, titled Receiving data breach notifications, provides guidance on what to expect when a data breach notification is received, including how organisations might deliver notifications and when a privacy complaint can be made to the OAIC.
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http://apo.org.au/node/133696
Data breach preparation and response
19 Feb 2018
Description
Strong data management is integral to the operation of businesses and government agencies worldwide. Digital platforms and technologies that utilise user data to provide personalised products or services have proliferated across communities and industries. At the same time, data analysis has been widely recognised for its value as fuel for innovation that can benefit the community in unprecedented ways, including identifying gaps in services, revealing needs for new or different products, and enabling better-informed policy-making.
In this environment, the success of an organisation that handles personal information or a project that involves personal information depends on trust. People have to trust that their privacy is protected, and be confident that personal information will be handled in line with their expectations.
As we’ve found in our long-running national community attitudes to privacy survey, if an organisation does not demonstrate a commitment to privacy, people will look for alternative suppliers, products, and services.
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https://www.itwire.com/security/81816-data-breach-law-60-of-businesses-unaware-of-basics.html
Data breach law: 60% of businesses 'unaware of basics'
Nearly 60% of Australian businesses are not aware of the details of the data breach law that takes effect on Thursday, a survey by GfK Australia for imaging solutions provider Canon claims.
Additionally, the survey, named the Business Readiness Index, found that small businesses, in particular, were seen to be least concerned about data security, stemming from a lack of awareness where only one in five (19%) were conscious of, and prepared for, the new regulations.
The survey was conducted in January and gathered insights from 400 key decision-makers from the business and IT communities. It aimed to gauge Australian businesses' existing information security practices, and determine their preparedness and ability to comply with the Data Breach Notification obligations.
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http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/important-email-likely-to-be-missed-in-flood-that-s-about-to-hit-your-inbox-20180221-p4z14q.html
Important email likely to be missed in flood that's about to hit your inbox
Mark Vincent
Published: February 21 2018 - 7:46PM
"Once more unto the (data) breach, dear customer."
To misquote Oscar Wilde, there is only one thing worse than not being told about a data breach, and that is being told about a data breach 10 times a day from 10 different service providers for the rest of eternity.
From today, Australian business enters a brave new world of data protection. Under the watchful eye of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme will require businesses with an annual turnover of more than $3 million to let their customers know if there has been unauthorised access to personal data in a way that could cause harm.
The scheme is an attempt to have Australia catch up with the rest of the world in terms of its corporate data security. Failure to notify a breach attracts fines of up to $360,000 for individuals and $1.8 million for businesses, for serious or repeated infringements.
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https://www.themandarin.com.au/88709-last-man-standing-information-and-privacy-commissioner-timothy-pilgrim-to-retire/
Last man standing: information and privacy commissioner Timothy Pilgrim to retire
Timothy Pilgrim has announced his resignation from his dual-role as privacy and information commissioner, effective March 24.
Pilgrim started as the privacy commissioner in 2010, when the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner was a much better resourced body with a separate commissioner for FOI and an overarching information commissioner in John McMillan,
who left in 2015, when the Abbott government intended to abolish the agency.
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Privacy Commissioner’s small budget to make policing new data breach laws difficult, experts say
Ben Grubb
Published: February 23 2018 - 8:55AM
Australia's new data breach laws require businesses and government entities to disclose hacks and leaks that cause "serious harm", with fines of up to $2.1 million for those who don't comply, but experts say the agency responsible for enforcing them may not have the resources to do so.
The Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme — which came into effect on Thursday — is likely to cause a swell in reported breaches. Former NSW Deputy Privacy Commissioner Anna Johnston, now head of Sydney-based private consultancy Salinger Privacy, questioned whether the Privacy Commissioner could enforce the new laws, considering it hadn't been allocated any new funding by the Turnbull government.
In an interview with Fairfax Media, Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim — who recently announced his retirement — did not deny it would be tough to keep on top of the office's growing caseload, revealing there were already long wait times for existing matters in his office.
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https://www.medicalobserver.com.au/professional-news/practices-need-a-way-to-ensure-unwanted-people-dont-get-appointments
Practices need a way to ensure unwanted people don't get appointments
20 February 2018
THE ISSUE
Many businesses and professional practices screen potential new clients to decrease the risk of accepting those likely to cause unnecessary stress or disruption, financial loss, disciplinary action or litigation.
Such a strategy, however, is not commonly used in medical practice. General practices tend to accept as new patients anybody who seeks care. However, there are certain types of people that a practice might not want to accept automatically, including:
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People known to have been aggressive, abusive or violent, including former partners of current patients;
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People known to be seeking opioids, benzodiazepines, amphetamines or other medicines for non-therapeutic purposes;
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People who seek to induce GPs to engage in behaviour that is illegal, unethical or unprofessional, including those who insist that the GP request unnecessary investigations or provide inappropriate treatments;
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New patients who have failed to attend a first appointment; or
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Others whose bad reputation precedes them.
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http://www.innovationaus.com/2018/02/AMA-chief-on-disruptive-tech
Beverley Head
February 19, 2018
AMA chief on disruptive tech
The Establishment
If your doctor whips out her smartphone to take a photo of your skin rash to share with a colleague, how will that image be protected, how long will it be stored and will your identity be protected? Will an artificial intelligence diagnostic tool pay any attention to the Hippocratic Oath?
Artificial intelligence in diagnostics, telemedicine, augmented reality to train doctors and surgeons, bionic eyes and ears, genome sequencing, genome editing, digital health records are all impacting the delivery of health services across Australia.
But are policy and process keeping pace?
The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has been the peak national body representing medical practitioners and students since the 1960s; it has a membership of 30,000 members plus 9,000 students. Nationally there are around 100,000 registered health practitioners.
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http://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/technology/article/personalising-digital-health-care-1485223217
Personalising digital health care
By Ian Manovel
Tuesday, 20 February, 2018
When it comes to digital health care, one size doesn’t fit all. We look at the benefits of personalising services to cater for different attitudes — and aptitudes.
The 2017 Federal Budget revealed $10 billion would be dedicated to health spending. As the Australian healthcare system moves to implement digital services such as Telehealth, eMedical Records, eMedication Management and eHealth Records, the industry needs to reconsider its one-size-fits-all approach.
While this legacy model is attractive for its simplicity, it generates a degree of waste and inefficiency, with some patients over-serviced, some neglected and a few dissatisfied. The health system needs to ensure that existing digital health technologies are effectively implemented, used by healthcare professionals and delivering patient benefits. By harnessing the power of digital, the healthcare system can evolve to innovate, improve data sharing and secure organisational trust. Digital will play a crucial role in creating a person-centric segmentation of patients, allowing policymakers and service providers to optimise resources and deliver the right services, at the right time, in the right way.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/act-health-wins-award-for-barcodes-for-blood-485191
ACT Health wins award for barcodes for blood
Project delivering big results.
ACT Health's innovative effort to reduce the instances of wrongly labelled blood samples and medications was rewarded as the top IT project in the healthcare category of the iTnews Benchmark Awards.
The health department has equipped patients and clinicians with barcodes and rolled out computers-on-wheels in order to reduce the risk of labels being incorrect or misapplied.
Patients are now cross-referenced with pathology orders and medication at their bedside to eliminate errors; a patient's wristband and the clinician's ID card must be scanned before a label can be printed on the computer-on-wheels and attached to the blood sample or medication at the point of care.
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http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/google-s-neural-networks-detect-heart-attack-risk-by-looking-at-patients-eyes-20180220-p4z0z7.html
Google's neural networks detect heart attack risk by looking at patients' eyes
Drew Harwell & Carolyn Y. Johnson
Published: February 20 2018 - 1:50PM
By looking at the human eye, Google's algorithms were able to predict whether someone had high blood pressure or was at risk of a heart attack or stroke, researchers at the company have confirmed, opening a new opportunity for artificial intelligence in the vast and lucrative global health industry.
The algorithms didn't outperform existing medical approaches such as blood tests, according to a study of the finding published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. The work needs to be validated and repeated on more people before it gains broader acceptance, several outside physicians said.
But the new approach could build on doctors' current abilities by providing a tool that people could one day use to quickly and easily screen themselves for health risks that can contribute to heart disease, the leading cause of death worldwide.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/the-human-body-the-next-frontier-for-technology/news-story/58fbfb2754e5066f5c762169849ac96d
The human body: the next frontier for technology
The brain could potentially be trained to operate technology planted in the body.
Get ready for the technology body invasion. Connected sensors, millimetre-sized robots and even a supplementary brain could enhance our lives from within our bodies. And we may not mind if we like the benefits. Then again, we may care if this internal technology makes us more vulnerable to hacking. Imagine being murdered from across the globe by an anonymous bot. An Inspector Morse, Holmes or a Vera might hit a brick wall trying to find the villain.
The truth is, humankind already is comfortable with some tech augmenting our bodies. We welcome Cochlear implants, pacemakers, replacement hips and knee joints when we need them, and the prospect of organs being 3-D printed or grown from stem cells is on the horizon. That will extend lives. At the cutting edge there are prosthetic limbs we can control with the brain.
But going further, the debate gets contentious. Biohacking was a discussion point at this week’s SingularityU conference in Sydney, organised by US-based start-up Singularity University.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/heart-attacks-the-latest-cycbercriminal-method-to-extort-victims/news-story/da012d620e1f6232a24814ed674e1d4d
Heart attacks the latest cycbercriminal method to extort victims
Cybercriminals are poised to strike their victims literally in the heart, US cardiologists have warned, with pacemakers vulnerable to hackers motivated by politics, greed or malevolence.
A new scientific paper warns that implanted cardiac devices can be rigged to fail or deliver lethal electric shocks, while malware or ransomware attacks can thwart the remote monitoring of heart patients.
The paper has been released this morning by the electrophysiology council of the American College of Cardiology.
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'Budget' contractor behind bungled RACP exam has a long record of failure
The low-cost operator has a well-documented history of mishaps
22nd February 2018
10 Comments
The company employed by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians to run its
botched fellowship examination is known as a “budget” option and has been involved in dozens of testing mishaps over the past two decades, a US exam watchdog says.
The contractor, Pearson VUE, is yet to explain the "unknown technical fault" that locked registrars out of Monday's five-hour test, causing chaos, tears, and the exam's eventual abandonment.
Yet Monday was just the latest instance of the company’s examination systems causing problems.
The UK-based multinational has been involved in more than 70 testing mishaps worldwide over the past 20 years, according to the US National Centre for Fair and Open Testing (NCFOT).
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-to-ditch-pki-certs-for-medicare-look-up-system-485342
Govt to ditch PKI certs for Medicare look-up system
DHS to accelerate move to PRODA.
The Department of Human Services will accelerate plans to end the use of PKI certificates for accessing the HPOS Medicare verification service after the federal government agreed to scrap the mechanism.
The government today published its response [
pdf] to a review into how health providers access Medicare numbers, following
revelations last year that Medicare details were being sold on the dark web for around A$29 per file.
It had ordered the review after it appeared the individual selling the card numbers had exploited legitimate access - specifically DHS’ HPOS Medicare verification service for health providers - to obtain the data.
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https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/news-and-events/news/media-release-new-global-digital-health-partnership
Media Release: New Global Digital Health Partnership
International participants from thirteen countries, Hong Kong SAR, and the World Health Organization (WHO) have kicked off a new global network to support best use of digital technology in modern healthcare.
The Hon. Greg Hunt MP, Australian Minister for Health, and the Hon. Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda, Minister for Health and Family Welfare, welcomed the participants to the inaugural Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP) Summit held in Canberra today.
Minister Hunt said the partnership will create a common platform for international experts to share knowledge and experiences, to network, and to forecast emerging trends to support the digital health landscape.
“Digital Health is the penicillin of our time, with precision medicine and genomics offering opportunities to cure previously incurable diseases and deliver better life saving medicine”.
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Media Release: International Digital Health Symposium brings leaders together
Digital health leaders from around the globe have met at the inaugural International Digital Health Symposium in Sydney to learn from different global approaches to digital innovation that are inclusive, evidence-based, and support sustainable, high quality health and care.
The leaders discussed the global advancement of digital health policy, how digital health can support clinical quality and safety, challenges in healthcare interoperability, data sharing for health systems improvement, and building the evidence base for digital health benefits. The management of global public health priorities, new approaches to disease prevention, and maximising the benefits of precision medicine were also discussed.
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Global digital health network announced as Australia takes a lead role in international collaboration
Lynne Minion | 23 Feb 2018
Australia has taken a leading role in digital health internationally, with the announcement of a global network of health agencies that have come together to support the implementation of digital technologies.
At a summit in Canberra this week hosted by the Australian Digital Health Agency, representatives from 13 countries, Hong Kong SAR and the World Health Organisation joined in creating the Global Digital Health Partnership.
The coalition, which will allow international experts to share knowledge, learn from each other and collaborate on projects, satisfies a global appetite, according to the Chief Medical Adviser at the ADHA, Dr Meredith Makeham.
“It's been a great honour for us to have such an overwhelmingly big response with our first call to like-minded people around the globe who also felt that this was a very important initiative to support their local policy and initiatives,” Makeham told Healthcare IT News Australia.
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Launch of the beta Health website
We're creating a new health.gov.au website that's easier for our stakeholders to understand and use.
Page last updated: 15 February 2018
You can
access our new website at beta.health.gov.au.
The new health.gov.au website is the first step of Health’s new digital presence. It currently has updated corporate information about us and what we do. We have also improved our immunisation information by re-writing it to make it easier to find and understand. This is the first stage of information that has been moved to the new website.
We have created our new website to make it easier for you to use. We are:
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Rewriting our information so you can easily understand it.
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Better organising our information so that you can find what you are looking for.
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Improving our search to help you find information fast.
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“We need to raise the bar”
PSA president says current levels of med-related hospitalisations are not good enough, but pharmacists can’t help without access to data
Pharmacists are expected to contribute to healthcare and reduce medication errors in an information vacuum, PSA national president Dr Shane Jackson told delegates at the inaugural International Digital Health Symposium held at UNSW Sydney on Wednesday.
“If you look at it from a community pharmacy perspective, [pharmacists] don’t have the data,” said Dr Jackson.
“The information they have is the dispensing information of the person.
“We expect pharmacists to contribute to healthcare and reduce hospital admissions in an information vacuum.”
Dr Jackson said the situation is dire considering the high levels of hospital admissions related to medication errors.
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http://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/future-of-healthcare/data-and-technology-to-transform-the-medical-system-20180219-h0wbek
Feb 21 2018 at 7:00 PM
Data and technology to transform the medical system
This content is produced by The Australian Financial Review in commercial partnership with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
"We collect one billion times more data on our cars than our bodies," Murray Brozinsky recently stated at the Commonwealth Bank's Future of Health Conference.
A recognised digital health leader, and chief strategy officer at Conversa, Brozinsky advises some of the world's leading healthcare organisations on the changing nature of health.
Comparing cars with humans might seem a bit of a stretch but his point is we're able to get so much diagnostic information from our car every time we get it serviced yet most of us still know very little about how our bodies are performing.In his presentation, Brozinsky outlined how healthcare was evolving with augmented reality technologies and artificial intelligence and illustrated a not-too-distant future where passive invisible sensors will be able to track everything biologically relevant on the body.
"They will feed into our electronic health records and all that information will go to create rich artificial intelligence-driven conversations between care teams and patients. We will be able to move from descriptive to predictive to preventative care very quickly. Patients will be providing valuable patient-generated health data (PGHD) and will be virtually involved in the consult," Brozinsky said.
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http://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/online-patient-consent-platform-one-ten-tech-innovators-latest-hcf-accelerator-intake
Online patient consent platform one of ten tech innovators in latest HCF accelerator intake
Lynne Minion | 19 Feb 2018
It was while working on a scabies eradication program in East Timor that two dermatologists formed a bond that would lead to a new technology start-up, but the innovation epiphany that inspired the development of their PracWay platform was actually much closer to home.
A personal medical crisis showed the formidable duo – Rebecca Saunderson and Julia Rhodes – that there was a need for them to channel their altruistic ambitions into empowering patients.
“In 2017, I was diagnosed with a mass in my jaw,” PracWay co-founder Saunderson said.
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19 February 2018
Data laws might reveal horrifying levels of GP ransomware attacks
Changes to legislation around medical data breaches, with fines of up to $340,000 for a single GP and up to $1.7 million for a practice, are set to a create a lot more havoc than the government, and many doctors running practices, currently suspect.
From Thursday this week, GPs and GP practices will be required by changes to the Privacy Act 1988 to notify individuals likely to be at risk of serious harm because of data breach, and to notify the office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner.
Until now, breaches did not have a mandatory reporting requirement.
Not surprisingly, there have not been a lot of breaches reported by any GP practices since the legislation introducing heavy fines for allowing breaches came into effect nearly four years ago. If you have had a breach, how likely are you to want anyone to know about it? So you do all you can do to fix it and move on. That can’t happen anymore.
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https://www.themandarin.com.au/88590-digital-identity-crisis-how-many-solutions-are-too-many/
Identity Crisis: how many solutions are too many?
The Commonwealth may have clamped down on its agencies competing for digital identity dominance, but Australia’s state governments are playing a different game. Global trends might soon make all these efforts moot.
In United Nations project
ID2020, Microsoft is partnering with
Accenture to create identities for over some of the world’s poorest people without a documented identity. The system will use Blockchain to connect existing records and manage fingerprint, iris and other biometric data. The underlying system is currently being used by the United Nations to enrol 1.3 million refugees and is expected to support 7 million refugees by 2020.
Australia certainly has its own issues with digital identity, after all, our government has been thrown into crisis by a small number of our parliamentarians who can’t properly prove where they come from. But despite a great deal of work and money being thrown by government and industry to deliver identity solutions over the years, our digital identity landscape still seems confused and increasingly cluttered. There is also the risk that like Queensland’s smart driver licence, the landscape may have moved on by the time we rollout a solution.
And unlike the very real problems being solved by the UN’s ID2020, as Queensland Privacy Commissioner Philip Green has told The Mandarin, in some ways government efforts are “a solution in search of a problem”.
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Feb 18 2018 at 11:00 PM
Bank push for new digital identity regime
Banks want an economy-wide, seamless approach to establishing customer identity. Karl Hilzinger
Banks want the government to work more closely with them on the national framework for establishing digital identity, and say it must include changes to "know your customer" (KYC) rules to allow them to rely on identity information provided by other organisations.
A new digital identity regime promises to reduce costs for banks by making it easier for customers to prove who they are. It will also make it easier to switch accounts.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/australia-posts-digital-id-named-best-federal-govt-it-project-485017
Australia Post's Digital ID named best federal govt IT project
Clear path to success.
Australia Post's strategic maneouvre towards digital identity has earned it the top prize in the federal government category of the iTnews Benchmark Awards 2018.
The postal firm's internally developed Digital ID identity verification solution positions it as a first mover in the Australian market.
Not only does the platform make big strides in AusPost's pivot away from its declining letters business and into digital solutions, but an early partnership with the DTA also promises to cement the organisation as potentially the first identity provider on the federal government's game-changing Govpass digital identity network.
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https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/633673/government-releases-digital-id-framework/
Government releases digital ID framework
Step towards allowing private sector to provide ID services
The government has released the first component of the Trusted Digital Identity Framework for oganisations seeking to provide identity services.
The framework, whose development has been overseen by the Digital Transformation Agency, is intended to set standards for organisations providing digital ID for access to online services.
The framework will help underpin the development of a federated digital identity system and provide the the standards for the government's Govpass ID platform
The intention is allow individuals to only have to prove their identity once and then be able to use a digital ID across multiple government services.
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https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/633524/5-early-warning-signs-project-failure/
5 early warning signs of project failure
Far too many projects still do not meet intended goals. Here are five leading indicators of a failing project that — when caught — can drastically improve your project’s chances for success.
Project failure is costly. While the Project Management Institute (PMI) last year reported that a
20 percent decrease in project failure rates versus the previous year, the amount of money lost to failed projects remains staggering, with an average of US$97 million for every $1 billion invested in projects going to waste.
There are
many reasons why projects still fail but paying close attention to and addressing these five early warning signs immediately can help keep things moving in the right direction with less strife and causes for concern, and ultimately decrease the risk of project failure.
1. A change-resistant culture
One of the first (and biggest) warning signs that your project may be headed for failure is an internal culture that is resistant to change. Projects bring about improvements in workflows and new operational best practices, often with an increased use of technology. These changes can create a significant amount of fear, as employees assume the end result will mean job losses or major disruption to their individual working world. Many projects have been internally sabotaged right from the start as result of these fears.
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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-co-told-to-expect-new-service-standards-485473
NBN Co told to expect new service standards
Before industry consultation even finishes.
NBN Co has been warned to “expect much higher levels of regulation” this year as the competition watchdog turns its attention to the network builder’s role in the end-to-end NBN experience.
In November last year, the ACCC launched an inquiry into NBN Co’s wholesale service standards, including missed appointments, connection delays and fault rectification.
Industry submissions to the inquiry don’t close for another fortnight, but already the ACCC is indicating it will intervene.
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NBN business case, regional rollout to be scrutinised
Parliament’s NBN committee to dissect NBN financial forecasts, regional rollout progress
Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network will put NBN’s financial forecasts under the microscope as one of two new inquiries.
The committee will examine the publicly owned company’s business model, including the competitive risks facing the “multi-technology mix” rollout model and “the Commonwealth’s accounting treatment of government debt/investment in NBN, and the prospect of future sale, in whole or part, of NBN”.
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Enjoy!
David.
