Note: I have excluded (or marked out) any commentary taking significant funding from the Agency or the Department of Health on all this to avoid what amounts to paid propaganda. (e.g. CHF, RACGP, AMA, National Rural Health Alliance etc. where they were simply putting the ADHA line – viz. that the myHR is a wonderfully useful clinical development that will save huge numbers of lives at no risk to anyone – which is plainly untrue) (This signifies probable ADHA Propaganda)
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Note: I have also broadened this section to try to cover all the privacy and security compromising and impacting announcements in the week – along with the myHR. It never seems to stop! Sadly social media platforms also get a large run most weeks. There are a lot of actors out there trying all sorts of things on!
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By Paul Benson
July 5, 2019 — 11.43am
Facebook has unveiled plans to lead the rollout of a new crypto currency called Libra, which will let you buy things or send money to people with nearly zero fees.
While most of the publicity has been centred around Facebook, the new technology is in fact owned by a consortium based in Switzerland that includes VISA, Mastercard, Uber, EBay, Vodaphone, Stripe and Spotify.
The intention is for the group to have more than 100 foundation members by the time it launches in the first half of 2020.
With all those heavy hitters behind it, you would be brave to bet against it.
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By Elizabeth Dwoskin
July 6, 2019 — 1.14pm
San Francisco: For more than two years, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has touted membership in private, "meaningful" communities as central to the future of the social network.
But that strategy of pushing closed interactions within groups is increasingly butting up against the company's capacity to monitor those that break the social network's rules against hate speech, harassment and other ills, civil rights groups and other advocates say.
They warn that the company's move into more private communications is on a collision course with Facebook's stated goal of cleaning up its platform ahead of the 2020 US presidential election.
Facebook's failure to monitor problematic groups surfaced again this week after an investigation by ProPublica revealed that a secret, members-only group of current and former Border Patrol agents joked callously about the deaths of migrants and used a vulgar illustration of Republican Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being forced to engage in a sexual act by President Donald Trump.
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A Digital Path to Health for All
The world is just beginning to recognize the potential of digitally enhanced data to improve health. Increased use of digital technology and artificial intelligence can make countries better at predicting and preventing disease, and at providing health care to people in remote or underserved areas.
BASEL/SEATTLE – Global leaders at the recent annual gathering of the
World Health Assembly in Geneva expressed worry and optimism in almost equal measure. Delegates at the Assembly – the decision-making body of the World Health Organization – likened the scope of the world’s health crisis to that of the threat posed by climate change. They also agree, however, that digital technology and data will play a crucial role in accelerating efforts to achieve health for all.
In many respects, the world’s health has improved markedly in recent decades: average global life expectancy has increased
by over five years, while childhood mortality has decreased
by over 50% since 1990. Yet
half the world’s population still lacks full access to basic health services, and health-related expenses drive roughly 100 million people per year into poverty. The problem is particularly severe in low- and middle-income countries, where the financial burden of the four most frequent non-communicable diseases alone (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory diseases) is expected to
surpass $7 trillion from 2011 to 2025, according to the WHO. At the same time, the world is just beginning to recognize the potential of digitally enhanced data to improve health. With increased use of digital technology, we can help people stay healthy, rather than waiting for them to get sick. We can make reactive health-care systems proactive and – thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) – even predictive. In our view, digital health is the most efficient, cost-effective way for the world to meet the United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals’ health-related targets – particularly universal health coverage, whereby everyone can access the quality care they need without incurring financial hardship. This is also a high priority for the WHO, which earlier this year created a Department of Digital Health and
published its first set of guidelines on the subject. With several major global strategy-setting meetings ahead, including the
UN High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage in New York in September, the world must act now to realize the promise of digital health. We see three distinct opportunities for cross-sectoral partnerships: in prediction, prevention, and health-care delivery. Understanding – and, where possible,
predicting – the health profile of populations is integral to providing better care. Digitized data collection, including through the use of AI and machine learning, can help health-care systems to detect risk factors in advance and respond quickly to prevent disease. Real-time data can inform planning and resource-allocation decisions, reduce costs, and improve the overall quality of care. Better processes for ensuring data security and privacy are also essential to implement predictive systems at scale.
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Australia delivering on national Digital Health Strategy
Monday, 1 July 2019 ADHA Propaganda
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
Australia is in the midst of delivering on the seven strategic outcomes in its national Digital Health Strategy 2018–2022.
Australian Digital Health Agency chief digital officer Steven Issa spoke at the 3rd Digital Hospitals Summit in Sydney on 27 June, where he said digital should be an enabler to help people, which is what health services are set up to do.
The
strategy’s key areas are My Health Record, secure messaging, interoperability and data quality, medicines safety, digitally enhanced models of care, workforce and education, and driving innovation.
One of its aims was to deliver My Health Record to all Australians who wanted it by 2018.
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Cabinet to consider national Health Information Platform
Wednesday, 3 July 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The Minister of Health has received advice on the proposed national Health Information Platform, and it will be considered by Cabinet either this month or next.
If approved the Ministry of Health will develop a detailed business case for the project.
David Clark was speaking at the HealthTech Conference 2019 in Auckland on 2 July where he said the government is focused on building equity and sustainability into the health system.
He said the current Health and Disability System Review is an opportunity to reshape the health sector, which is “ready for change”, having remained largely the same since the turn of the century.
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Social media: good, bad or downright dangerous?
Antony is a medical reporter with a special interest in technology and pharmacy.
2nd July 2019
What do Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande, Aaron Paul and Kanye West have in common?
These celebrities all took breaks from social media to improve their mental wellbeing, with Sheeran saying the break was to reduce stress and Grande saying it was to help manage her anxiety.
But is this evidence-based?
Researchers from the University of New England in NSW say studies on the topic rely on self-reported use with its known limitations.
As an alternative, they enforced social media holidays — installing an app on the phones of 78 people aged 18-48 that blocked Instagram and Facebook for a week.
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Any Facebook account ‘open to defamation’
12:00AM July 6, 2019
Anyone who has a social media account with a comments section — be it a blog, Facebook or YouTube channel — should regard themselves as fair game for a defamation action in Australia, a media law expert has warned.
The warning follows a world-first judgment by the NSW Supreme Court that media companies were liable for any defamatory comments made by third parties on their Facebook pages, even if they didn’t know the offending comments were there.
Peter Barnett, a partner with the country’s largest law firm, Minter Ellison, said he believed the public did not understand the implications of the ruling last month. “It applies well beyond the media, whether it’s individuals or small businesses or one of Australia’s largest companies,” said Mr Barnett, who acts for Nine newspapers.
“If they have a website and someone posts a potentially defamatory comment on their site — even though they didn’t write it, they didn’t see the post — they can still be sued.”
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How hard data can help save children at risk
July 6, 2019 — 12.05am
Too often the welfare sector sees hard data as the enemy of compassion.
Whenever the accountants are brought in, the assumption is that governments are looking to cut costs in the cruellest, most short-sighted way from social work, hospitals, schools and welfare benefits.
But NSW Minister for Families and Communities Gareth Ward could be about to challenge that idea.
It could be the basis for a historic shift in welfare policy towards helping children before they get into trouble and away from the current system, which often waits for them to crash and then tries to put the pieces back together.
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Why some men want to use facial recognition technology on porn actors
A program that cross-references faces in porn videos with social media profile pictures is questionable, not just morally but because facial recognition software has long been fraught territory.
Sarah Manavis
Jul 5, 2019 — 7.12pm
Michael, a 30-year-old New Yorker, messages me via the chat forum website Reddit to explain how a new technology could be the answer to his relationship woes. “She said that
her job left her worn out and overworked,” he says of a former girlfriend. “She didn’t seem interested in having sex. Maybe somebody else was satisfying her and it haunts me to this day.”
Michael (a pseudonym) is one of many men rejoicing over software reported soon to be publicly available. Responses on forums such as Reddit, 4chan and 8chan read: “I’ve been waiting for this all my life” and “Hoes are about to be mad”.
The repercussions of applying facial recognition to pornography are considerable: what happens when men searching for their girlfriends or family members or colleagues receive false results.
The innovation that has excited these men? A tool that they hope will resolve their romantic paranoia:
facial recognition software designed for porn, built to search for women’s faces.
Facial recognition software has long been
fraught territory – software used by London's Metropolitan Police misidentified innocent members of the public as potential criminals 96 per cent of the time – raising ethical concerns and questions over its usage. The repercussions when this sort of technology is applied to pornography are considerable: what happens when men searching for their girlfriends or family members or colleagues receive false results saying “here she is, in this porn film”?
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Coordination of health care: experiences of information sharing between providers for patients aged 45 and over 2016
05 Jul 2019
Author: AIHW
PDF Report (4Mb)
Safe and high-quality health care depends on the sharing of health information between health-care providers. In 2016, nearly 1 in 4 patients reported inadequate information sharing between the emergency department they visited and their GP or usual place of care. This report looks at gaps in information sharing between providers, using the 2016 Survey of Health Care.
- ISBN: 978-1-76054-557-4 (Online)
- Cat. no: CHC 3
- Pages: 49
Findings from this report:
· In 2016, nearly all patients (98%) reported that their usual GP or place of care was aware of their health-care history
· 12% of patients aged 45–54 did not receive enough information about their care compared with 6% aged 65 and over
· 1 in 4 patients who visited an emergency department said information was not shared with their GP
· Remote area GPs were less likely to be informed of patients’ last specialist visit compared with major city GPs
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Aussie telco metadata requests again on the rise
First 2017-18 numbers revealed by three agencies.
Law enforcement and other agencies are making more requests to access the telco metadata of Australians captured under mandatory data retention laws.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Independent broad-based anti-corruption commission (IBAC), and the NSW Crime Commission today revealed numbers for the 2017-18 financial year.
Telecommunications metadata requests are reported annually by the Department of Home Affairs.
However,
the annual report is often late and in past years has been released with little fanfare, and the last one published was for 2016-17.
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Let's face it, email has had its day
Unlike electronic mail, committing something to paper and spending $1 on a stamp suggests the contents might actually be worth reading.
Jul 5, 2019 — 12.15am
An old contact wrote me a letter recently. Once I got over the shock that mail was still delivered to the office and that I actually had a pigeon hole, I rang to ask the obvious question: Why?
“I’m a great believer in letter writing,” Slasher said. “Besides, nobody reads emails.”
He might be getting on a bit and still use a dictaphone, but Slasher does have a point. Email has reached the stage in its evolutionary cycle where people’s first instinct is to ignore it.
The problem is cost – or lack of it. When something is free you tend to overuse it, which in my case means being on the mailing list of every person I’ve ever been in contact with and plenty I haven’t during 18 years of journalism.
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Implementation Method and Clinical Benefits of Using National Electronic Health Records in Australian Emergency Departments: Literature review and environmental scan for the My Health Record in Emergency Departments project
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Implementation Method and Clinical Benefits of Using National Electronic Health Records in Australian Emergency Departments: Literature review and environmental scan for the My Health Record in Emergency Departments project
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Publication year 2018
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Democracy and a digital age
Jeff Bleich
Democracies depend on optimism; people having confidence that, with the right facts, they can choose good leaders and make wise decisions for their futures.
I have long been optimistic about digital technology helping spread democracy online: it has made it possible for every person to access vast information through internet searches; to connect with trusted sources through social media; and to petition everyone from the government to dictators thousands of miles away through online campaigns.
But in both intentional and unintentional ways, there is a real risk that this great tool of democracy can be used to undermine democracy.
Russian interference in elections from Ukraine to the US to France reveals one way in which adversaries use digital technology to dirty our information field and trick us, and undermine our confidence in the facts and each other.
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Open banking faces delay due to data concerns
Jul 3, 2019 — 7.00pm
Plans to begin open banking in February next year could be delayed after Labor said it was unlikely to pass the requisite legislation by the end of this month due to data privacy concerns.
Assistant Minister for Financial Services Jane Hume said the legislation, known as the Consumer Data Right bill, needed to be passed before the end of this month, when Parliament rises for the winter break, to enable the sector enough lead time to implement the changes.
Open banking, which has been pushed ever since Scott Morrison as treasurer saw it in operation in the UK, is designed to boost competition in the sector by ending entry barriers facing smaller banks and fintech operations.
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3 July 2019
So who actually does have access to your MHR?
If you’re a little unclear who can access a patient’s My Health Record, you’re in good company.
After getting some contradictory information from sources close to the system, The Medical Republic sat down with the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) to be reassured on who can legally and practically access one, and when, and how it’s monitored.
Take pharmacies: can the teenager at the till, or the technician in the dispensary, read your health information? No and yes respectively. A surgeon’s receptionist? No. A GP practice nurse? Yes.
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia offers a course called Introducing My Health Record, written in partnership with the Australian Digital Health Agency “especially for pharmacy assistants and dispensary assistants”, its website says.
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Facebook to tackle content with misleading health claims
So much for 'miracle cures'.
Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it was taking steps to reduce promotion of products based on misleading health-related claims.
In a
blog post, the social media company said it had made two updates last month to reduce posts with exaggerated or sensational health claims.
Facebook said it will take actions to reduce posts making assertions about a "miracle cure", and against the ones aimed to promote products or services on health-related claims, such as a pill for weight loss.
The company and its peers around the world are under growing pressure to rid their platforms of fake news and misinformation, and the spread of misleading health claims were highlighted as a concern in some recent media reports.
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Instant messaging is great, but keep personal info out of it
Researchers find WhatsApp helps communication between pharmacists
3rd July 2019
The WhatsApp instant messaging platform can be a useful tool for community pharmacists, but they should keep their personal information out of it.
Pharmacists want more rules around its use, a team from Newcastle University, UK, report in Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy.
After conducting focus groups with 27 after-hours pharmacists and analysing 1580 messages, they found the platform helps professional development and communication between pharmacists.
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Q&A: Genetic tests pose discrimination risk, says AMA ethics chair
The organisation is updating its position statement, previously released seven years ago
3rd July 2019
Will I develop a hereditary condition? Are my partner and I related by blood? Why is my child experiencing problems with their health or development?
Dr Chris Moy.
It is increasingly easy for Australian patients to pay for genetic tests to find answers to questions like these, but the rise of accessible genomics raises ethical challenges for them and their doctors.
Adelaide GP Dr Chris Moy describes genetic testing as a “brave new world” for doctors that is quickly changing.
As more genetic and genomic services integrate into mainstream healthcare, he says there is an urgent need to grapple with the ethical challenges before they get too far ahead of doctors, the law and the community.
The AMA Ethics and Medico-Legal Committee is in the middle of its review of the AMA’s position statement on genetic testing from 2012.
Dr Moy, who chairs the committee, speaks with Australian Doctor about some of the ethical, legal and social challenges currently in discussion.
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Increasing need for greater digital literacy in workforce: report
National broadband network provider NBN Co says there is an increasing need for digital literacy in the workforce as high growth jobs, such as management and professional jobs, demand digital literacy skills almost seven times more frequently than occupations that are becoming less prevalent.
And, the study, undertaken by Alpha Beta for NBN Co, also predicts that time spent on problem solving is expected to double to 12 hours per week, while use of STEM skills will almost double from five to nine hours per week.
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How to find the hidden truths in your business data
Companies now have mountains of information about their customers, but it isn't worth much if it isn't analysed correctly.
Chris Lloyd
Jul 2, 2019 — 9.55am
Running the 100 metres in 9.58 seconds might make Usain Bolt the fastest man on Earth, but not necessarily the best athlete. It could be argued that honour should go to Kevin Mayer, the current decathlon world record holder.
Bolt’s explosive speed in one event outshines Mayer’s effort in any single stretch of the decathlon, which requires running the 100 metres, 110-metre hurdles, 400 metres and 1500 metres, plus competing in the long jump, high jump, shot-put, discus, javelin and pole vault.
But you don’t win the decathlon by being the best at everything. You win by being the best overall, based on points earned from each event. Mayer scored a world-best 9126 points at a two-day test of his speed and strength in 2018, providing a valuable lesson to business in the process.
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Franking credit campaign forced to destroy information
July 2, 2019 — 12.00am
Talking points
- Under dividend imputation rules, Australians are given franking credits on the dividends they receive for the shares they own in order to avoid company profits being taxed twice.
- Because the company has already paid tax on its earnings, its dividend payments to shareholders come with credits that reduce the individual’s tax bill every year.
- Most workers have incomes that are high enough to ensure they still pay tax after the dividend credits are counted.
- But when the individual has little or no income other than dividends, he or she ends up being owed money by the Australian Tax Office and then receiving it as a cash refund.
The firm that spearheaded the Coalition's campaign against Labor's franking credits policy has been forced to destroy all personal information it collected.
Wilson Asset Management, which collaborated with Liberal MP Tim Wilson on a "Stop The Retirement Tax" campaign, has entered into an enforceable undertaking with the privacy regulator after a five-month investigation found it failed to handle information properly.
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Franking credits website blasted by Privacy Commissioner
Wilson Asset Management International cops court-enforceable undertaking.
The data assets of Australia’s political parties and their candidates are notoriously exempt from the Privacy Act, but proxy campaigns waged by their sympathetic friends and relatives are definitely not, a fresh action by the nation’s data watchdog has confirmed.
Wilson Asset Management International (WAMI), the investment firm that galvanised the brutally effective campaign against Labor’s franking credits policy, has been ordered by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) to immediately destroy its campaign data holdings through a
court-enforceable undertaking.
“Our investigation identified deficiencies in WAMI’s personal information handling practices which will be addressed through a court-enforceable undertaking,” Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk said in a statement.
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Is My Health Record becoming useful to GPs?
Five months after the opt-out period ended, has Australia’s digital health repository hit the threshold for usefulness?
My Health Record promised a lot. Is it starting to deliver?
Some GPs give an emphatic yes, while others say it is still a work in progress.
But that may depend on where GPs are based, with some states seeing far higher hospital uptake than others.
Following months of at times tense debate around privacy and security provisions for the digital health record, around 90% of Australians now have a My Health Record, a system built by the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA).
Around 90% of general practices and 83% of pharmacies have now signed up. More than 700 hospitals are connected, and the ADHA estimates around 20 million clinical documents are now online, including 3.3 million discharge summaries.
But progress has been piecemeal, with one expert telling newsGP Victoria’s decentralised hospital network is making sign-up slower than in other states where public hospitals are centralised.
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Monday, 01 July 2019 11:38
Third-party apps will be blocked from Gmail data on 15 July
Many apps that have had access to Gmail data will find their access blocked soon as Google locks down API access, with the cut off date being 15 July. The new API policy was announced in October last year.
The verification process for apps began in January and ended last week. Apps that have been verified by Google will now have to face a security assessment that costs anything from US$15,000 to US$75,000 each year, Julia Furkulitsa, a member of the team that produces the app Clean Email, told iTWire. This assessment will be needed for any app that stores Gmail data on a third-party server.
Third-party apps have been interacting with Gmail for a long time using the OAuth APIs, seeking permission from users to do so. But with the new changes in place, Google will
decide for what
uses an app can access Gmail data.
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Morrison wins G20 support for online terrorism crackdown
Jun 29, 2019 — 6.06pm
Osaka | Scott Morrison has scored a victory at the G20 leaders' summit by having fellow leaders agree to lobby social media companies over the publication of violent content by terrorists.
In a strongly-worded statement separate to the communique issued at the conclusion of the G20, the leaders warned that a repetition of the Christchurch massacre, when a terrorist live-streamed his atrocities on Facebook, threatened the full potential of digitalisation.
"For us all to reap the rewards of digitalisation, we are committed to realising an open, free and secure internet. The internet must not be a safe haven for terrorists to recruit, incite or prepare terrorist acts,'' the statement said.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
