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
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The most impressive thing to me this week has been the waffle emitting from the ADHA on how the MyHealthRecord is in need of being fixed but with no concrete plans or suggestions being laid on the table. The thing is almost a decade old so surely we need to be told, in fact and with stats, just how useful it is being and what is planned to make it more successful – if you believe that is even remotely possible. Otherwise please just kill it off!
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Changes likely for GP-generated summaries in My Health Record
Shared health summaries are set for a shake-up after the head of the Australian Digital Health Agency flagged the need for a broad modernisation of the technology underpinning My Health Record.
02 Sep 2019
Speaking at the RACGP’s eHealth forum last week, Tim Kelsey said there is an opportunity to ‘modernise My Health Record’s infrastructure’.
Mr Kelsey was speaking in response to a question from prominent RACGP digital health advocate Dr Nathan Pinskier, who had asked whether it was now time to reassess the ‘value proposition’ of shared health summaries.
‘We designed shared health summaries around 10 years ago. My feeling is we need to go back and have a look at why we’re asking GPs to upload shared health summaries, how it fits into their workflow, what the value proposition is, and whether there’s a better way of doing it,’ Dr Pinskier said at the forum.
‘Now’s a great time to revisit this. Do we need shared health summaries, or is there a better way of extracting data, as in other parts of the world?’
Mr Kelsey said he ‘completely agreed,’ pointing to the Australian Digital Health Head Agency’s (ADHA’s) push this year to move forward on interoperability more broadly in digital health.
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Mr Kelsey was speaking in response to a question from prominent RACGP digital health advocate Dr Nathan Pinskier, who had asked whether it was now time to reassess the ‘value proposition’ of shared health summaries.
‘We designed shared health summaries around 10 years ago. My feeling is we need to go back and have a look at why we’re asking GPs to upload shared health summaries, how it fits into their workflow, what the value proposition is, and whether there’s a better way of doing it,’ Dr Pinskier said at the forum.
‘Now’s a great time to revisit this. Do we need shared health summaries, or is there a better way of extracting data, as in other parts of the world?’
Mr Kelsey said he ‘completely agreed,’ pointing to the Australian Digital Health Head Agency’s (ADHA’s) push this year to move forward on interoperability more broadly in digital health.
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Digital health strategy 2019–2029
30 May 2019
The Digital Health Strategy presents a vision and direction to guide future activities and investments in technology across the Territory. It outlines the direction for the ACT public health system in building the digital capabilities needed to support a sustainable, innovative and world-class health system for the ACT. The strategy also sets principles to guide the design and development of digital health capabilities to support the delivery of safe and high-quality person-centred care. Most of all, the strategy illustrates a desired future state for the ACT with regard to digital health.
This strategy was developed taking into account the strategic context in which person-centred care is delivered in the ACT. Global, national, and regional considerations were taken into account to ensure the ACT is well positioned to meet future demands and challenges.
Publication Details
Copyright: Government of the Australian Capital Territory 2019
Language: English
Published year only: 2019
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New eHealth Queensland chief executive named
By Lucy Stone
September 5, 2019 — 5.07pm
Eight months after the sudden resignation of eHealth Queensland chief executive Dr Richard Ashby, his replacement to oversee multimillion public health software projects has been announced.
Dr Ashby resigned in late January after Queensland Health director-general Michael Walsh referred allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a staff member to the Crime and Corruption Commission.
eHealth Queensland oversees the controversial $1.2 billion integrated electronic medical record project, the rollout of which Health Minister Steven Miles announced in July would be put on pause until 2021.
In a letter sent to Queensland Health staff on Thursday, Mr Walsh announced Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service senior executive Damian Green would replace Dr Ashby.
Mr Green will also take on the mantle of chief information officer.
“In his role at GCHHS as executive director, digital transformation and chief information officer, Damian has been pivotal in driving continuous improvement in health service delivery and quality, which lies at the heart of everything we do in our health system,” Mr Walsh wrote.
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Queensland Health gets a new CIO
After last chief suddenly quit.
Queensland Health has appointed Damien Green as its new chief information officer, a role that also makes him the head of eHealth Queensland, eight months after the former chief suddenly resigned.
Green, who is currently CIO and executive director of digital transformation at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (GCHHS), will take up the role from 23 September.
He replaces Richard Ashby, who quit in January over allegations of an undeclared relationship with a staff member working on the replacement of the state’s Patient Administration System.
Ashby has been referred to the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission, while work to replace the almost 30-year-old hospital-based corporate information system has been scrapped.
In an email to staff on Thursday seen by iTnews, Queensland Health director-general Michael Walsh said Green's “long career of leading public sector organisations in the way of digital innovation” made him well placed for the role.
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Services Australia minister floats single govt app for citizens
But questions remain.
The minister in charge of the federal government’s Services Australia experiment has floated the prospect of a single website or app for accessing all government services.
Minister for Government Services Stuart Robert made the comments to the Australia Financial Review this week while announcing the government’s proposed data sharing reforms.
He said the government's ultimate aim was to bring the experience of government service delivery into line with that of the private sector by having one website or app where citizens could go for all their interactions with government.
“If you go to your Telstra app you can login biometrically, move to their CRM system and see all of the services that you have with Telstra and you can do everything from one place ... Citizens are saying where is the one app for government?” Roberts told the AFR.
“We just need to provide services better ... My department alone has six different apps.”
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'The world is changing': Government turns to healthcare by video
By Ben Weir
September 3, 2019 — 12.00am
An Australian startup will soon be offering medical video conferences to people around the country and has its eyes set on the US market next.
Coviu has been selected to be the teleconference provider for Healthdirect the government-funded national health call centre network and the company’s chief executive Dr Silvia Pfeiffer says it will be an amazing feeling to be able to reach those living in regional parts of the country.
"We have people living in remote areas who travel for days to get to a hospital appointment," Pfeiffer says.
"The world is changing people are getting used to talking to their families via video via Skype and Facetime all these technologies have changed our society."
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Cochlear to support direct audio streaming on Android 10
For phone calls, music and videos.
Australia’s implantable hearing device darling Cochlear has today revealed a tie-up with Google that will allow users with newer generation hearing aids and implants to directly stream audio from Android devices.
The new capability coincides with the release of Google’s latest version of its mobile operating system, Android 10, with the Pixel 3 family of phones the first to get the update and the ability to connect with hearing ads.
In partnership with Danish hearing aid connectivity specialist GN Hearing, Google and Cochlear co-developed a new open source hearing aid specification for - Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Connection-Oriented Channels.
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Tuesday, 03 September 2019 12:10
Coviu seals deal with Healthdirect Australia to deliver video call service
Health information and advice service Healthdirect Australia is partnering with telehealth software platform provider Coviu to power its government-funded Video Call service.
Under the deal over 5,500 service providers and their online clinics in hospitals, medical centres and GP practices across Australia have been migrated across to the new Coviu-powered healthdirect Video Call as of 1 September.
“To realise the great potential of video access between health consumers and their care providers, we have worked collaboratively on designing the service with front line clinical and administrative staff at hospitals, PHNs and health networks to ensure this service works seamlessly with their existing workflows and suits their model of care,” says Karen Borg, CEO of Healthdirect Australia.
“healthdirect video call was developed by Healthdirect Australia to make it easy for healthcare providers to offer their services direct to patients via video consultation and integrate telehealth as an everyday part of a modern Australian health system.
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Life-saving Victorian prescription monitoring SafeScript wins national award
September 4, 2019 12:27 pm AEST
SafeScript wins national Australian Information Industry Association award
The life-saving role of clinical tools in reducing risk for vulnerable Australians was acknowledged last week with Victoria’s SafeScript real-time prescription monitoring winning a national award for innovation and excellence.
The Fred IT Group congratulates the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services for winning the Australian Information Industry Association iAward in the category of Infrastructure & Platforms Innovation of the Year for SafeScript.
SafeScript tackles the growing problem of accidental misuse of prescription medications by providing clinicians with alerts of clinical risk based on medications interactions. These alerts are based on the real-time monitoring of prescription data captured via the electronic transfer of prescriptions through eRx Script Exchange and MediSecure.
Fred worked with the Department to develop SafeScript and roll it out across Victoria. The first clinicians started using SafeScript during patient consultations in October 2018. Since then, clinicians have received clinical risk alerts relating to more than 57,000 Victorians.
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Movember Foundation taps into Genie Solutions' medico software
Improving outcome data flow.
Australian medical software vendor Genie Solutions has partnered with the Movember Foundation to generate more insightful data for men diagnosed with prostate cancer and their clinicians.
The initiative will integrate Movember’s True North digital health solutions with Genie’s clinical software to improve the scope of data on the patient journey from diagnosis through to recovery.
Both Movember and Genie Solutions also expect to include resources for other types of cancer in future iterations of the partnership.
The first stage, however, will give clinicians on Genie’s platforms access to Movember’s True North resources and surveys, which are filled out by men living with prostate cancer to regularly track and follow up on changes to physical and mental health over time.
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Robodebt banned from wider govt data sharing plan
Proposed laws rule out sharing for compliance, assurance purposes.
The federal government has ruled out using proposed data sharing and release laws for compliance and assurance purposes after pushback from the public.
A discussion paper [pdf] on the reforms, released on Tuesday, reveals major concerns around the planned scope of the legislation were raised during consultation with stakeholders.
Consultation was held following a July 2018 issues paper on the development of the Data Sharing and Release Bill, which is expected to make more public sector data available for sharing and release.
The proposed laws intends to unlock public sector data for sharing with “trusted users for specified purposes” by overcoming “complex legislative barriers and outdated secrecy provisions”.
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Labor calls for dedicated cyber minister
· Australian Associated Press
Federal Labor has welcomed the Morrison government's plan to develop a new cybersecurity strategy but is calling for the appointment of a dedicated cybersecurity minister.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Friday released a consultation paper to update the nation's cyber security strategy, calling for submissions by November.
The government says a new approach to cyber security is needed because foreign state-backed hackers are becoming more brazen in their attempts to use online espionage.
The first strategy was created three years ago.
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Dutton warns of increased hacking threat
· Australian Associated Press
Foreign state-backed hackers are becoming more brazen in their attempts to use cyber espionage, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton warns.
Mr Dutton on Friday launched a consultation paper on cyber security to update the nation's strategy, which outlines the increasing threats from foreign states.
"State actors are growing more organised, confident, and sophisticated in using cyber espionage and interference to promote their national interests," the paper said.
Australia's energy, telecommunications and transport sectors are at risk of being targeted by cyber attacks as they embrace the digital age.
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Monday, 02 September 2019 12:08
Australia hit by 9.2 million malware attacks in just six months
Australia continues to be a malware target, with 9.2 million malware detections in the first half of 2019 - with malicious URLs also proving a popular form of attack, as the number of times a malicious URL was accessed reached 8.9 million, according to a new global security report.
And the report from security firm Trend Micro also reveals that business email compromise (BEC) remains a major threat, with Australian businesses encountering more than a quarter – or 27.2% - of the total number of BEC attempts globally.
Trend Micro also report that there has been a worldwide surge in fileless attacks designed to disguise malicious activity, with detections of the threat up 265% compared to the first half of 2018.
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Implementation of data and digital services must be accelerated, report says
Tuesday, 3 September 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
Implementation of data standards, data stewardship, identity management and interoperability must be accelerated in the health sector, the interim report from the Health and Disability System Review Panel says.
The report, released on 3 September, highlights problems and necessary improvements in the area of data and digital as one of 12 key messages, saying, “some current ways of working in New Zealand inhibit the full potential of technology across the health and disability system”.
While health systems worldwide are assessing their readiness for a digital future, “New Zealand is lagging behind other countries with limited interoperability of systems and a lack of national data standards,” it says.
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Health a clear candidate for AI investment
Tuesday, 3 September 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
New Zealand’s health sector is a clear candidate for national AI investment to improve efficiencies and augment the clinical workforce, new research says.
The latest report from the AI Forum, Towards our intelligent future, calls for urgent action to progress the use of AI to address some of New Zealand’s most pressing challenges and not wait for a formal government-led national strategy.
“Our research pinpoints specific New Zealand opportunities where we can succeed – we have identified significant opportunities in health, conservation and road safety as clear candidates for national AI investment,” says AI Forum executive director Ben Reid.
The report says the quality and scope of big health data in New Zealand is considered very strong and includes linked data in the Statistics New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure.
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Government promises Telstra public support on 5G safety
By Jennifer Duke
September 6, 2019 — 12.00am
The government has assured Telstra that it is backing high-speed 5G mobile network rollout plans amid signs of a community backlash against the technology and has promised a stronger public stance from the regulator over the technology's safety.
Communications Minister Paul Fletcher met with Telstra executives for a demonstration of the high-speed 5G mobile networks technology several weeks ago, as the $42.6 billion telco continues to build the new infrastructure across the country.
Telstra network engineering executive Channa Seneviratne, speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age at Telstra's enterprise-focused Vantage event in Melbourne, said Mr Fletcher had been shown scientific evidence that there were no major health concerns when it comes to 5G.
"From a science-based point of view we've been able to demonstrate that the [radiation emissions from] 5G are of the same order as 4G and 3G and WiFi.
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5G can replace fibre if economics stack up
Sep 4, 2019 — 12.00am
5G technology could replace fixed line fibre broadband as the dominant medium for high speed internet, but only if enough money is invested, Telstra’s main network equipment supplier Ericsson says.
Jan Abrahamsson, head of strategic customer engagement at the Swedish telecoms equipment giant, said there was no technological barrier to 5G replacing fixed line.
“If there is a use case and a business case for it, then [5G] can definitely replace fixed,” he told The Australian Financial Review.
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Tuesday, 03 September 2019 14:19
Landlines now a minority
The decline in the number of Australian households with a landline telephone connection has accelerated. For the first time, reputable statistics show that there are now more Australian homes without a landline than with one.
The latest Roy Morgan ‘State of the Nation – Media Report’ says that less than half Australia’s population have a home phone connected (48.6%). The data is based on Roy Morgan’s regular survey of Australian households, based on its ‘Single Source’ large and representative sample.
Data from government sources, such as the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the Australian Bureau of Statistics still show a majority of households with a landline, but their figures are invariably a year to 18 months out of date. The Roy Morgan data is less accurate, but much more current.
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Telstra cops $400m revenue hit from NBN Co connection delays
But gains modest earnings lift.
Telstra has come good on analyst sentiment that NBN Co’s latest corporate plan issued on Friday will buffet its market guidance, telling the ASX on Monday opening that its overall revenue and cash flow will take a hit because of slower than anticipated rollout.
The telco has shaved back its predicted total income by around $400 million, booking in its new range at between $25.3 billion to $27.3 billion for FY20, down from $25.7 billion to $27.7 billion.
"Telstra no longer anticipates FY20 being the year of peak nbn headwind and now estimates this will occur in FY21. The changes to forecast activations in NBN Co’s Corporate Plan 2020 also has the effect of deferring Per Subscriber Address Amount (PSAA) receipts from NBN Co in FY20 into future periods."
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Monday, 02 September 2019 10:45
Optus launches program to improve services outcomes, enhance customer experience
Optus has unveiled CX Academy and a program for its employees designed to improve customer experience and services outcomes.
Australia’s second largest telco says the Academy program – the first of many strategies focused on improved customer experience - takes employees through a variety of customer experience [CX] masterclasses designed to drive the “best end to end experience outcomes for customers”.
According to Optus since the program launched, over 300 Optus employees nationally have been trained across a range of CX disciplines through a series of masterclasses, exploring Lean Process Improvement, Customer Journey Mapping and Human Centred Design.
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Slower NBN hits Telstra outlook
Telstra has downgraded forecasts for full year 2020, with the telco set to take a $400 million hit to its total income on the back of a slowdown in the number of homes to be connected to the NBN during the period.
With a half a million homes set to wait longer to get connected to the NBN, Telstra said the full impact of the project on its books will now be delayed.
“Telstra no longer anticipates FY20 being the year of peak NBN headwind and now estimates this will occur in FY21,” it said in a statement.
The telco has cut its forecast for total income for full year 2020 by $400m. It is now expected to come in between $25.3 billion and $27.3bn.
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Saturday, 31 August 2019 06:02
NBN cuts activation target in 2020-23 corporate plan
Australia's broadband builder NBN Co says network building will continue beyond the stated deadline of June 2020, to hook up 100,000 premises defined as "complex installations, which include properties that are difficult to access and some culturally significant areas and heritage sites".
Releasing its 2020-23 corporate plan on Friday, the company said it had reduced its activations target from the earlier plan, down to 7.0 million from the original target of 7.5 million. The target in the 2017 corporate plan was 8.1 million.
Despite this the company stated that it was on schedule and on budget to complete construction of the network by 30 June 2020, a statement it clarified in a footnote which said: "NBN Co's build completion commitment is that all standard installation premises in Australia are able to connect to the NBN access network as at the build completion date.
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Saturday, 31 August 2019 14:33
No NBN upgrades planned for FttN
NBN Co is planning bandwidth improvements for FttC (fibre to the curb) and HFC (hybrid fibre coax) customers. But premises connected via FttN (fibre to the node) will receive no enhancements, at least during the life of the new NBN 2020-23 Corporate Plan.
Released on Friday, 30 August, the plan sets out the carrier’s strategy for the next four years. It predicts a total of 8.6 million installed premises by 30 June 2023. Of these, 3.3 million, or nearly 40%, will be FttN. Just 1.8 million (21%) will be FttP, the technology originally envisaged for more than 90% of connections when the Rudd ALP Government announced the project after the 2007 federal election.
With the election of the Abbott Coalition government in 2013, then Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull switched the strategy to what he called a ‘multi-technology mix’ (MTM) comprising a blend of FttP, FttC, FttN, HFC, satellite and fixed wireless. The reasons given were to reduce costs and to complete the network more quickly.
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Enjoy!
David.
