-----
This weekly blog is to explore the larger issues around Digital Health, data security, data privacy and related matters.
I will also try to highlight ADHA Propaganda when I come upon it.
Just so we keep count, the latest Notes from the ADHA Board are dated 6 December, 2018! Secrecy unconstrained! This is really the behavior of a federal public agency gone rogue – and it just goes on!
-----
Clinical informaticians key to digitised health service
Tuesday, 10 September 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth visited Sydney Local Health District in June and reports back on how the district is building a network of clinical informatics leaders to drive and lead digital health projects.
The district
Sydney Local Health District believes that clinical informaticians are integral to support and sustain a highly digitised health service.
The district operates a clinically led governance model, and in order to make this work they need people to serve as the bridge between ICT services and clinical staff.
Back in 2014 it established a health informatics unit, bringing together executive leaders in clinical informatics into a team to work more closely with ICT services.
The unit includes a chief medical information officer, chief nursing and midwifery information officer, chief pharmacy information officer and a chief allied health information officer.
-----
Honesty needed to break 'impasse' over cops versus encrypted data
The Encryption Working Group has proposed a sensible way to advance the debate on encryption policy, including a reality-based decision-making framework. Australia's approach has been nothing like this.
The "contentious debate" over when and how law enforcement agencies can lawfully access encrypted data has reached an "impasse", according to a new paper by the Washington-based
Encryption Working Group.
Encryption has made criminal investigations more difficult, say the cops, and they aren't happy. But strong encryption also thwarts criminals, preserves privacy, and protects marginalised communities, say others.
Can any proposal satisfy both groups, let alone all the other stakeholders?
Your writer's view is that everyone's been talking past each other, especially in Australia.
Lawmakers, whose actual job is synthesising coherent policy from competing priorities and turning it into legislation, are clearly unwilling or unable to think through the complexities.
-----
AI and ethics: The debate that needs to be had
Like anything, frameworks and boundaries need to be set -- and artificial intelligence should be no different.
Whether we know it or not, artificial intelligence (AI) is already steeped into everyday life. It's present in the way social media feeds are organised; the way predictive searches show up on Google; and how music services such as Spotify make song suggestions.
The technology is also helping transform the way enterprises do business.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia, for instance, has
applied AI to analyse 200 billion data points to free up more time so its customer service officers can focus on doing exactly what their title suggests: servicing customers. As a result, the bank has seen a 400% uplift in customer engagement.
IBM is using the technology
to preserve Australia's iconic beaches from washing away. Scientists are using the capabilities to put their time towards addressing coastal erosion, rather than on mapping it – which is very time-consuming.
-----
Pharmaceutical opioid harm rising in Vic
More Victorian women present to hospital emergency departments for pharmaceutical opioid harm than men as overall numbers surge, according to new data.
Kaitlyn Offer and Christine McGinn
Australian Associated Press September 19, 20192:58pm
More women than men visit Victorian hospital emergency departments with illness caused by pharmaceutical opioids, according to a new report which reveals a decade-long surge in opioid cases.
Almost 5000 women went to emergency departments with opioid-related harm compared to 3157 men between 2008/09 to 2017/18, according to the Monash University Accident Research Centre report released on Thursday.
Harm from the prescription pain drug increased by 3.1 per cent a year on average during the 10-year period, the report says.
Between 2015/16 to 2017/18, there were 2618 emergency presentations coded as opioid poisoning, most commonly from codeine and oxycodone, followed by tramadol.
-----
Digitizing healthcare
The developer’s creation is a standardized means of exchanging electronic health records across completely different platforms that have been sky-high embraced by developers and also by the federal government.
The name of the person behind HL7 FHIR, that stands for Health Level 7 – Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources. The Melbourne developer’s plan was this: produce a standardized base layer to permit sensitive aid knowledge to transfer between usually terribly completely different software system products.
What FHIR achieves is creating it easier for systems to be able to exchange aid information and have it within the right place at the correct time. It solves ability.
Note: Contender For Dumbest Digital Health Item Of The Year!
-----
Tech companies’ dangerous practice: using artificial intelligence to mine hidden health data
By Mason Marks
September 17, 2019
Imagine sending a text message to a friend. As your fingers tap the keypad, words and the occasional emoji appear on the screen. Perhaps you write, “I feel blessed to have such good friends :)” Every character conveys your intended meaning and emotion.
But other information is hiding among your words, and companies eavesdropping on your conversations are eager to collect it. Every day, they use artificial intelligence to extract hidden meaning from your messages, such as whether you are depressed or diabetic.
Companies routinely collect the digital traces we leave behind as we go about our daily lives. Whether we’re buying books on Amazon (AMZN), watching clips on YouTube, or communicating with friends online, evidence of nearly everything we do is compiled by technologies that surround us: messaging apps record our conversations, smartphones track our movements, social media monitors our interests, and surveillance cameras scrutinize our faces.
What happens with all that data? Tech companies feed our digital traces into machine learning algorithms and, like modern day alchemists turning lead into gold, transform seemingly mundane information into sensitive and valuable health data. Because the links between digital traces and our health emerge unexpectedly, I call this practice mining for emergent medical data.
-----
20 September 2019
Defence’s ‘futureproofing’ tender window to broader health future
If you get a bit frustrated with how much the potential connected health has for Australia is getting bogged down by state versus federal politics, doctor association and college priorities, projects such as the My Health Record, and the commercial dictates of incumbent technology vendors, then you might want to take a look at an unfolding Department of Defence tender to “futureproof” its healthcare provision.
It’s a fascinating project for the fact that it may provide us with a an idealised look into what is actually possible if you take all of the above debilitating market factors out of connected health technology implementation, and just get on with integrating best-of-breed technologies in a closed ecosystem.
In this case, that system is the Department of Defence, both in the field and in all other aspects of delivery, all the way up to a field hospital situation and a single electronic medical record for the whole department.
Other key elements of the tender include a replacement primary care practice management system, a critical care patient management system, a new Defence eHealth Record for all Australian Defence Force members, and an overall health knowledge management system.
Eventually Defence wants the system to be all encompassing, adding to the above closed loop ePrescribing and eDispensing diagnostic imaging and pathology service, emergency and inpatient hospital care, surgical and ICU care, and sterilisation services, and a overriding communications system for it all.
-----
Federal parliamentary committee to probe 5G concerns
· 12:18PM September 19, 2019
Community misgivings about the infrastructure needed for 5G mobile networks will be examined by a new a federal parliamentary committee established to examine the opportunities and challenges posed by the technology.
The committee will be chaired by Nationals MP David Gillespie, with Labor MP Ed Husic serving as deputy chair.
While the committee will “investigate the capability, capacity and deployment of 5G; and 5G use cases”, it will steer clear of any national security implications of the technology.
“5G will transform the way we live and work, and provide opportunities for family life, industry and commerce. It will power smart homes and cities and provide new ways to experience entertainment, and at the same time transform transport, logistics and industry,” Dr Gillespie said.
-----
Digitising healthcare: One unsung developer is here to help
One of the world’s most influential digital health developers lives in Melbourne, but few in Australia know his name.
18 Sep 2019
This developer’s creation – a standardised way of exchanging electronic health records across different platforms – has been enthusiastically embraced by developers and the US Government.
Now, tech titans like Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft have taken up the standard as they push into digital health, followed by major cloud computing providers.
But few know the name of the man behind HL7 FHIR, which stands for Health Level 7 – Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources.
And that’s more or less how Graham Grieve likes it.
-----
Contract Notice View - CN3627914
Subcontractors: For Commonwealth contracts that started on or after 1 December 2008, agencies are required to provide the names of any associated subcontractors on request. Information on subcontractors can be sought directly from the relevant agency through the Agency Contact listed in each Contract Notice.
Labour Hire
Agency Details
Contact Name: Australian Digital Health Agency
Office Postcode: 2606
CN ID: CN3627914
Agency: Australian Digital Health Agency
Publish Date: 17-Sep-2019
Category: Temporary personnel services
Contract Period: 14-Sep-2019 to 11-Sep-2020
Contract Value (AUD): $147,581.25
Description: Labour Hire
Procurement Method: Open tender
ATM ID: DH2249
Agency Reference ID: 4500134320
Supplier Details
Name: The Trustee for Clicks Recruit
-----
Fears over driver licence surveillance plan
· 12:33PM September 17, 2019
A planned national database using facial recognition technology to match identities to driver licences, passports and other documents could see people targeted for “trivial” matters and could pave the way to a more powerful surveillance state.
The Andrews government today announced it has begun upload documents to one database dedicated to driver licences, which would allow Victoria Police and VicRoads to check if a person has more than one driver licence by matching photographs.
But it also made clear that any further use of the documents, including in broader national databases, won’t be allowed until it is “satisfied” with the Morrison government’s proposed identity-matching laws, which are currently under review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS).
The proposed federal laws, which were first flagged last year following a 2017 COAG meeting, would see photos from visa, citizenship, passports, driver licences and other documents collected and facial recognition software deployed to match documents to an individual.
-----
Australia lagging in analytics race
· September 18, 2019
Australian companies are falling behind their peers when it comes to using data analytics in business, according to a new report.
The research, from Melbourne Business School and global management consulting firm AT Kearney, found only six per cent of companies surveyed globally extract the full potential analytics, but Australian firms fare even worse.
The report revealed Australian companies are falling behind their global peers in maturity and impact from their analytics functions, meaning how developed their analytics capabilities are, and how much value their analytics operations provide the bottom line.
Professor Ujwal Kayande, Founding Director of the Centre for Business Analytics at Melbourne Business School, told The Australian that Australian companies are less experimental and less technology-oriented than their peers.
-----
18 September 2019
PIP payments to flow without data, for a while
The Australian GP Alliance (AGPA) and the RACGP say the incentive scheme is poorly designed, insecure and unready, but that the Health Department is “holding a financial gun to GPs’ heads”.
Worth up to $50,000 a year for the largest practices, the PIP QI requires the sharing of deidentified patient data with your Primary Health Network using data-extraction software supplied by the PHN, such as Polar or Pen CAT.
The data, which is deidentified before it leaves the practice, will be analysed at the PHN stage to yield 10 improvement measures (including the proportion of patients with smoking status recorded, the proportion of female patients with up-to-date cervical screening, and so on). The data will then be sent to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare for national-level analysis.
-----
Get ready to celebrate the profession
Safe, efficacious use of medicines remains at the heart of the profession, says one leading pharmacist, as World Pharmacist Day draws near
Australian pharmacists are being urged to join their colleagues around the world on World Pharmacist Day, 25 September.
They day aims to highlight and celebrate the crucial role they play in public health and safety.
According to Webstercare Managing Director Gerard Stevens, the World Pharmacist Day theme ‘Safe and effective medicines for all’ is an opportunity to remind pharmacists and their patients that the broad knowledge and unique expertise of pharmacists contribute every day to the health and safety of all Australians.
(ADHA Propaganda)
-----
Fevers, rashes and three months of illness: the health risks facing a growing Sydney
Emma Guiney has sworn off holiday destinations with mosquito-borne diseases. As the climate changes, they will likely be on her doorstep. Such diseases are one of the many health challenges Sydney faces as its population booms in the next decade.
September 17, 2019
Emma Guiney lay in a hospital bed, crying as the rash throbbed. Days earlier, she developed a headache and flu-like symptoms while in Thailand. Thinking it was a hangover, she soldiered on.
But her energy levels plummeted when she returned to Australia. She was diagnosed with dengue fever. "To even do a load of washing I would need to have a three-hour sleep afterwards," she says. It was three months before Ms Guiney, from St Peters, felt well. She won't be returning to Thailand.
Despite most cases being isolated, dengue fever reaches as far south now as Rockhampton in central Queensland. In the coming decade, as Sydney's climate warms, the city could get an increase in mosquito-borne diseases.
(See end for comments on #myHR)
-----
RACGP warns photo ID Medicare cards may increase risk of fraud
President Dr Harry Nespolon has warned the One Nation plan would not solve fraudulent use and may raise the ‘spectre of the Australia Card’.
17 Sep 2019
Speaking before the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee, Dr Nespolon said the private bill proposed by One Nation to include photos on Medicare cards could in fact ‘exacerbate’ the relatively rare fraudulent use of the cards.
‘[T]here is a risk that, with the introduction of photographs, Medicare cards could become de facto ID cards that are then easily forged or obtained for the purposes of fraud,’ Dr Nespolon told the hearing.
‘Putting photos on Medicare cards may raise the spectre of the Australia Card.
‘The Medicare card should only be used for healthcare and not as a population identification card.’
-----
Big Brother: Every Victorian's driver's licence to be uploaded to database
September 17, 2019 — 9.53am
The driver’s licences of all Victorians will be uploaded to a national facial recognition database, in what lawyers have warned could lead to privacy and security breaches.
The state government has already uploaded the information to a digital platform, and it is expected to be transferred on to the National Driver Licence Facial Recognition Solution in the next three months.
VicRoads and Victoria Police will be the initial two agencies to get access to the database to help them target frauds who create fake documents or multiple licences.
-----
Fertility app glitches put women out of sync
September 17, 2019 — 1.00am
Fertility apps riddled with "alarming" inaccuracies and "disturbing" misinformation could be inadvertently sabotaging the chances of women conceiving, researchers warn.
Thousands of Australian women are using fertility apps to give them the best shot at getting pregnant or avoiding it, but flaws in these trackers are leading some would-be mothers to believe they are infertile.
A study presented at the Fertility Society of Australia's Annual Scientific Meeting in Hobart on Monday found that more than 57 per cent incorrectly predicted ovulation dates and almost 83 per cent incorrectly predicted estimated due dates.
"This is compounded by incorrect timing for intercourse, incorrect fertile window calculations and pregnancy information," the researchers, from Eve Health fertility clinic in Brisbane and Queensland Fertility Group, reported after analysing 36 of almost 400 popular apps marketed as reliable and effective.
-----
Data sharing and release: legislative reform discussion paper
3 Sep 2019
In 2016, the government asked the Productivity Commission to look at how data was used across the Australian economy. The Productivity Commission found Australia’s use of data was falling behind other countries and recommended data reforms to unlock the full potential of public sector data. The government is currently implementing the recommendations, including legislative reforms discussed in this paper.
In 2018, the Office of the National Data Commissioner was established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to improve data sharing and use across the Australian public sector. The interim National Data Commissioner, Ms Deborah Anton, was appointed to oversee the development of new legislation to support these data reforms.
While the government currently shares data for a range of important and valuable projects, establishing these sharing arrangements involved onerous legal negotiations and resulted in inconsistent safeguards and standards. The new legislation, with a working title of Data Sharing and Release legislation, fulfils the needs of Australians to receive better public services, policies and research outcomes driven by transparency and accountability in the system.The new legislation will empower government agencies to safely share public sector data with trusted users for specified purposes. Its aim is to streamline and modernise data sharing, overcoming complex legislative barriers and outdated secrecy provisions. The legislation will also allow government agencies to draw on expert advice to assist them to share data safely using contemporary tools and techniques.
Note: This was discussed on the blog last week.
-----
'Russian propaganda stoking 5G health fears in Australia'
September 16, 2019 — 2.01pm
False claims that 5G telecommunications technology causes a host of serious illnesses are "very likely" being amplified by the Kremlin's media network and being repeated by Australians, according to new analysis.
Russia's broadcaster RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and other alternative media websites are likely behind the uptick in 5G phobia in Australia, says Bret Schafer, a disinformation and media fellow at the US-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, a pro-democracy group funded by non-government sources.
“It is very likely that RT-promoted narratives are seeping into the Australian information environment via social channels,” said Schafer.
RT is a Kremlin-sponsored global media network that promotes an anti-Western worldview, sometimes with the help of disinformation.
-----
Exclusive: Australia concluded China was behind hack on parliament, political parties – sources
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian intelligence determined China was responsible for a cyber-attack on its national parliament and three largest political parties before the general election in May, five people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Australia’s cyber intelligence agency - the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) - concluded in March that China’s Ministry of State Security was responsible for the attack, the five people with direct knowledge of the findings of the investigation told Reuters.
The five sources declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue. Reuters has not reviewed the classified report.
The report, which also included input from the Department of Foreign Affairs, recommended keeping the findings secret in order to avoid disrupting trade relations with Beijing, two of the people said. The Australian government has not disclosed who it believes was behind the attack or any details of the report.
-----
Comments more than welcome!
David.
