This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.
Quote Of The Year
Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"
or
H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
With The Federal Election Due In
The Next Month Or So, How Do You Rate Minister Hunt's Performance In Digital
Health Over The Last Term Of Government?
Excellent 1% (1)
Good 0% (0)
Okay 6% (9)
Poor 57% (92)
Terrible 36% (58)
I Have No Idea 1% (2)
Total votes: 162
What an clear-cut poll again. Only one reader was keen on Mr Hunt (Thanks Greg for voting) and 93% rated his efforts as poor or worse. I would mark that as a fail!
Any insights on the poll welcome as a comment, as usual.
A more than reasonable turnout of votes!
It must have been a fairly easy question as just 2/162 readers were not sure what the appropriate answer was.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and 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.
This announcement forms the “information exchange” element of the GNCR.
It means staff treating patients will have access to all the relevant information needed for their care, such as medications, test results, allergies, and other pre-existing conditions.
The patient lying on the emergency room table in front of Paul Pugsley was having a stroke. Time was running out. Pugsley, an emergency medicine resident at Maricopa Medical Center, knew he needed to send the patient for a CT scan.
But when Pugsley looked over at the computer screen at the side of the room, he saw a pop-up message demanding bitcoin payment. A few minutes later, he was told that the same message had shut down the scanner — he’d have to help the patient without knowing whether the stroke was caused by a bleed or a clot, information that’s usually vital to the course of treatment.
After a few minutes of frantic workarounds, the patient — actually a medical test dummy — was wheeled out the room (prognosis: survival, but serious brain damage). The flashing ransom note was part of a simulation, designed to expose physicians like Pugsley to the very real threat of cyberattacks on their hospitals.
April 01, 2019 - Implementing a data completeness tracking system (CTX) may help to boost EHR data integrity in research, according to a recent JAMIA study by researchers affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital.
Researchers designed, implemented, and tested a CTX system across six care sites part of the Accessible Research Commons for Health (ARCH) collaborative as part of a pilot study exploring the effect of CTX on EHR data integrity.
According to AHIMA, “data integrity means that data should be complete, accurate, consistent, and up-to-date.”
Why are some jurisdictions dragging their feet on real-time monitoring? asks Angelo Pricolo
As Victoria powers ahead with the Australia’s first automated Real-Time Prescription Monitoring (RTPM) system, the elephant in the room is “What are the other states and territories waiting for?”
The Guild president in the ACT, Simon Blacker, said last week that ACT doctors and pharmacists could now track patient use of some prescription medicines in real time. It comes after the ACT Government introduced real-time prescription monitoring legislation last year, which was one of the recommendations from a 2016 coronial inquiry into the drug overdose death of a 21-year-old Canberra man.
But why is it taking so long in NSW and other states, when the SafeScript launch in Melbourne on Sunday saw the Health Minister announce that SafeScript is available to health practitioners across Victoria from the 1st April?
RTPM systems alone cannot fix the problem. It is widely accepted, however, that providing data about a patient’s monitored drug history in real time at the points of care enhance the clinical decision making by health practitioners. Whilst the technical solution is only one part of this complex puzzle, most health practitioners feel that having access to this information at the point of care is vital.
“RTPM systems are often proposed as part of the package needed to reduce overdose deaths due to prescribed drugs. But several evaluations of RTPM have been disappointing,” says Dr Alex Wodak president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation based in Sydney.
“It is not clear that RTPMs reduce consumption of prescribed drugs, or reduce deaths from overdose of prescribed drugs or that unintended negative consequences of RTPMs are acceptable. However, a number of other effective ways of reducing drug overdose deaths are known.
“Drug supply reduction (like RTPM) often seems attractive but in practice is often disappointing whereas demand reduction and harm reduction are often far more effective, safer and more cost effective.”
According to the NSW Ministry of Health, “a timetable for implementation has not been developed and the costs to NSW to implement real-time prescription monitoring have not been determined.” In evidence tendered in these proceedings Judith Mackson, Chief Pharmacist and Director of the Chief Pharmacist Unit within NSW Ministry of Health, stated the NSW system was still in the design stage.
Ms Mackson stated that the NSW Ministry of Health was committed to waiting on the Commonwealth system rather than implementing a NSW “stand alone” system. When questioned about the Victorian Government’s implementation of the SafeScript system, she stated that in relation to NSW, she “[did not] believe that the timeframe would be any earlier if it was done on a state level as opposed to nationally”.
Pharmacy Guild Victorian president Anthony Tassone says that other jurisdictions need to act on their own systems.
“With the successful pilot of SafeScript in Western Victoria and now the state-wide rollout, there is really no excuse of any other state or territory who hasn’t implemented real time prescription monitoring,” Mr Tassone said.
“How many more people need to lose their lives to prescription medicine overdose? We have a tool that can help save lives, and the time is now for there to be a system in every state and territory across Australia.”
It was hoped “90% plus” of GPs would be on board by the time it became mandatory, according to AMA Victoria president Associate Professor Julian Rait.
Doctors can also check a patient’s prescription history for monitored medications through the SafeScript website, with one GP reporting it was “quick and revealing”, Professor Rait said. It would remain up to the GP to decide whether is was appropriate to go ahead with the prescription, he said.
“The only enforcement aspect of this ultimately might be just making sure people know about it … and don’t prescribe willy nilly without regard to what else people have prescribed, that’s the initial intention of the system.
“In the longer term, one would hope there would be more service for people who have been identified by this system to get alternative forms of pain relief and possible better pain management.”
RTPM will not stop overdose deaths, it will not stop illegal importation and cannot eliminate illicit drugs.
But as we are already seeing in Victoria, it is an opportunity to intervene when a patient history indicates that someone’s safety is at risk due to the hazardous use of high-risk prescription medicines. It can often lead to those measures Dr Wodak talks about: demand reduction and harm reduction.
More Victorians die from prescription medicine overdoses than from illicit drugs or the road toll. SafeScript, Victoria’s RTPM system, gives doctors and pharmacists real-time information about high-risk medicines taken by their patients. This will save lives.
