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This weekly blog is to explore the larger issues around Digital Health, data security, data privacy, AI / ML. technology, social media 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 behaviour of a federal public agency gone rogue – and it just goes on! When you read this it will be over 16 months of radio silence, and worse, while the CEO, COO and the Chief of Staff have gone, still no change. I wonder will things improve at some point, given the acting CEO seems not to care, as well. I think it is fair to assume no change will come in the foreseeable future.
Note: Appearance here is not to suggest I see any credibility or value in what follows. I will leave it to the reader to decide what is worthwhile and what is not! The point is to let people know what is being said / published that I have come upon.
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What's driving the Electronic Health Records Market trends? Key Players are Epic, Cerner, eClinicalWorks, Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Inc. and NextGen Healthcare
A concise assortment of data on 'Electronic Health Records market' by Market Study Report, LLC, offers an exhaustive study targeting current market trends influencing the business across assorted regions. Significant details related to market size, market share, applications, and statistics are put together to convey an ensemble prediction of the industry. The research further focuses on comprehensive competitor's analysis in addition to highlighting growth strategies embraced by market leaders.
Canada electronic health record market accounted for over USD 1,144.0 million in 2018. Implementation of pan-Canadian EHR initiative will augment the adoption of electronic health record in the country. Also, increasing investment and expenditure on healthcare information technology will play a pivotal role in boosting Canadian electronic health record industry growth.
Note: This shows just what rubbish a lot of so called ‘market research’ actually is!
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Coronavirus: Australia’s telehealth system could be, should be, so much better
Telehealth consultations are crucial in combating the coronavirus, but doctors and industry experts say the federal government isn’t doing enough to make them widely available.
On Wednesday, the government announced that some telehealth consultations would be temporarily listed on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS).
But doctors say the move doesn’t go far enough, and have urged the government to make bulk-billed telehealth consultations available to everyone.
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Proposed data sharing laws to give govt agencies veto powers
Australian Statistician says.
Sweeping new data sharing and release laws proposed by the federal government will give agencies the power to veto data requests from other agencies and trusted third-parties.
Freshly generated Australian statistician David Gruen this week said the planned Data Availability and Transparency Bill would grant agencies the ability to exercise their own judgement with data.
“Use of the proposed legislation by Commonwealth agencies is enabling and optional,” held told the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA).
“Under the proposed legislation, there is no authority to compel custodians of public sector data (that is, agencies that hold and are responsible for their slices of public sector data) to share data.
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AI roadmap aims to put Australia at the forefront of shaping international standards
Provides key recommendations for government, industry and other stakeholders
Senior Journalist, Computerworld | 12 March 2020 15:20 AEDT
Standards Australia has published the Artificial Intelligence Standards Roadmap: Making Australia’s Voice Heard, which was commissioned by the Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources and aims to place Australia at the forefront of the creation of international AI standards.
It has eight recommendations on where Australia should focus on AI Standards work and who should have responsibility for their implementation, with recommendations being divided by four goals. These range from safety and trust for citizens and consumers, to ensuring export opportunities for Australian businesses are protected, promoted and enhanced.
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ACT Policing faces scrutiny over mobile phone location requests
Some dating back to 2007.
ACT Policing has identified “compliance issues” stretching back 13 years in its use of powers to identify the approximate location of mobile devices as part of investigations.
In a
statement, the Australian Federal Police - which includes ACT Policing - said compliance issues, “some dating back to 2007 … related to [its] record-keeping, authorisations and reporting of requests” obligations
under the relevant legislation.
AFP said it had self-reported the issues to the Commonwealth Ombudsman, and also commissioned PwC Australia to conduct an “independent audit into requests to telecommunications carriers”.
“The independent audit is expected to be completed by June 2020,” AFP said in a statement.
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Thursday, 12 March 2020 09:03
Britain introduces 2% digital services tax in 2020 budget
The UK has introduced a 2% digital services tax on the revenues that certain digital businesses earn from 1 April, in its 2020 budget which was presented to Parliament on Wednesday. Also announced was an increase of £22 billion in public sector research and development spending.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said the DST was in keeping with the announcement made in the 2018 budget.
"This will ensure the amount of tax paid in the UK reflects the value these businesses derive from their interactions with, and the contributions of, an active user base," according to the budget papers.
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Artificial intelligence won't rule the world so long as humans rule AI
Former journalist, public campaigner and director of the Centre for Responsible Technology.
March 12, 2020 — 12.00am
What do the Pentagon, the Vatican and some of the big players in Silicon Valley have in common? They have all embraced ethical principles to guide the development of artificial intelligence that are superficially big on ambition, but sadly lacking any teeth.
Getting a framework to guide AI is critical because of the rapid development of algorithms that analyse and repurpose the huge troves of personal information that governments and private businesses collect from us to inform the development of everything from autonomous weapons to our credit rating.
What seems to be emerging, though, is a feel-good tick-a-box process that looks good in a prospectus but does little to protect the public interest in the real world. It’s really just ethics-washing.
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Australia’s privacy watchdog is taking Facebook to court. It’s a good start
March 11, 2020 3.14pm AEDT
Authors
Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, UNSW, and Academic Lead, UNSW Grand Challenge on Trust, UNSW
Senior Lecturer, School of Taxation ＆ Business Law, UNSW
To our knowledge, this is the first time the privacy regulator has sought civil penalty orders under the Privacy Act.
Facebook responded by saying it had made “major changes” to its platforms “in consultation with international regulators”.
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My Health Record 2020
Children's Rights
Wed, 03/11/2020 - 09:00
My Health Record (2020)
These resources are designed to help students understand their rights under the My Health Record system. My Health Record is a secure online summary of an individual’s health information. Young people can manage their own My Health Record from the age of 14. These resources were developed in partnership with the Australian Digital Health Agency and were co-designed with Australian school students.
Years: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Subjects:
Health and Physical Education
Digital Technologies
Civics and Citizenship
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March 11, 2020 5:11 pm AEDT
New Resource to Teach School Children About Digital Health Records
Schools are being given the opportunity to teach students about their rights in managing their digital health records, using a new resource designed by the National Children’s Commissioner, Megan Mitchell.
Under the My Health Record system, children aged 14 years and over can manage their own records. They may do so independently, or they can grant access to parents or guardians. They may also choose to cancel their digital records at any time.
The lesson plans, being launched Thursday March 12, are aimed at students in Years 5 to 10 and teach young people about their rights, helping them make sensible and informed decisions about how to manage their personal health records.
Commissioner Mitchell said, “These are important decisions for teenagers, so it’s necessary for them to be aware of their rights, and how to manage information about their medical history.”
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Digital health agency launches My Health Record resource for children
Friday March 13, 2020
The Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian Digital Health Agency have paired up to design a resource which teaches school children about the My Health Record system.
The ADHA manages the Federal government’s digital health records system, which is currently used by 22.65 million Australians.
Children aged 14 years and over can use My Health Record independently, or they can grant access to parents or guardians. They also have the power to cancel their digital records at any time.
Designed by the national children’s commissioner Megan Mitchell, the
lesson plans aim to teach students in Years 5 to 10 about their rights when managing their medical information.
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Security and data protection the biggest issue in screen scraping, says CBA’s Brendan Hopper
· 2:49PM March 11, 2020
Get used to it.
In a nutshell, that’s Commonwealth Bank’s response to the pile-on from the fintech sector about CBA’s market behaviour, especially in relation to screen scraping.
Screen scraping is taking a snapshot or picture of a person’s bank account which can be used to provide a customer with data aggregation services.
Former Fintech Australia chairman Stuart Stoyan fired up Liberal Party senator Andrew Bragg’s inquiry into financial and regulatory technology by turning on CBA for “targeting its own customers who are engaging with fintechs, particularly through screen scraping or other means”.
Bragg responded that anti-competitive behaviour had become one of his committee’s main themes.
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EU privacy rules no obstacle to coronavirus fight; smartphone tracking a no-no
Mass tracking of movements and contacts using smartphone data a clear violation.
Europe's privacy rulebook does not create obstacles to taking action to curb the coronavirus epidemic but mass tracking of people's movements and contacts using smartphone location data would represent a clear violation.
Technophiles support the use of such data to reconstruct the movements of people exposed to the flu-like virus and identify others at risk of infection. Privacy advocates counter that this approach, used in China, subjects people to the kind of digital surveillance that has no place in a Western democracy.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect in the European Union in mid-2018, states that people's data is their own and requires anyone seeking to process it to obtain their consent.
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It’s time to reassess the cyber security status quo
· By Tim Wellsmore
· 2:52PM March 9, 2020
Not only are cyber threats growing in number and magnitude, but the costs of these risks continue to balloon in a way that’s difficult for anyone to truly quantify.
While conservative estimates put the cost to Australia’s economy up to $1bn annually, the true impact on our nation dwarfs this figure once we factor in damage to business, personal livelihoods and government services.
As technology continues to proliferate through our lives, cyber threats will be in lock-step. Criminals will use the information superhighway to hold our valuable assets, our industries and our governments to ransom.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) released a report last month that describes an almost 20 per cent increase in last year’s reported data breaches compared to the first half of the year, most of which were malicious attacks. And, just last month, a ransomware attack crippled the wool industry by targeting a critical software supplier.
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Upcoming webinar events - Nurses navigating My Health Record: Q&A with experts
9 March 2020
Close to two billion documents have been uploaded to the national My Health Record system, with more than 40 million uploaded in January alone. With increasing clinical content, healthcare providers may have access to more current and up-to-date information about their patients.
Join us for a panel discussion attended by representatives from the Australian College of Nursing, Australian Digital Health Agency and nurses who have incorporated My Health Record into their daily workflow. There will be opportunity to ask questions throughout the session.
This education is CPD accredited and delivered in collaboration between the Australian College of Nursing and the Australian Digital Health Agency.
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More pathology labs connecting to My Health Record
9 March 2020
Australian Clinical Labs, Capital Pathology, Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology, Hobart Pathology, Launceston Pathology, North West Pathology and Southern IML Pathology are able to send pathology reports to the My Health Record when they receive an eOrder from practice management software (PMS).
Medical practices looking to get ready for their patient pathology reports going to My Health Record should follow the steps below:
Step 1
Ensure you are using one of the following PMS software versions:
PMS
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Australian Clinical Labs
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Sonic Healthcare Labs
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Best Practice
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1.8.8 and later
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Lava SP3 and later
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MedicalDirector Clinical
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3.0 and later
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3.17.2 and later
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MedTech32
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6.0 and later
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n.a.
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Zedmed
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22.0 and later
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n.a.
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Step 2
Connect with My Health Record system if not already participating. Some pathology labs need the patients’ individual healthcare identifiers (IHIs) from their practice software to be able to upload pathology reports to My Health Record. Doctors will need to have eOrders enabled for this to apply. Contact the lab if eOrders need to be enabled in their PMS.
Step 3
Contact the lab to initiate uploading of pathology reports to the My Health Record system for their patients.
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Why you shouldn't plug into that airport charging station
From the perils of free Wi-Fi to 'juice jacking', travellers need to be more vigilant than ever to ward off hackers.
Mar 10, 2020 — 10.28am
Remember when
travelling safely meant refraining from writing your full name and address on your
luggage tag? Back in the day, adults would have you believe that any number of sneaky burglars frequenting airports could catch sight of the tag, memorise your address, watch you venture through the departure gate then go to your home and pinch all your belongings.
The overzealous parents of one childhood friend used to write a fictitious address on their bag tags. To what end, it’s hard to say. I still wonder what would have happened had an airline ever attempted to return their lost luggage to the fake address.
These days there’s no need for the full name and address, thanks to solutions such as radio frequency identification (RFID)
luggage-tracking tags that allow airlines to more easily locate baggage.
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Facebook imposes new transparency rules on political ads in Australia
March 10, 2020 — 11.46am
The social media tactics of Australia's political campaigners will be laid bare from next week as Facebook imposes new transparency measures designed to bolster discourse on the platform.
From March 18, Australian political advertising on Facebook will face rules that have already been rolled out in the United States and some other countries since 2018 in response to concerns about online misinformation and foreign interference in democracies.
Ads about politics, elections and social issues will need to be authorised by an Australia-based person whose identity will be verified by Facebook. Ads will also have a public "paid for by" disclaimer linked to an account, page or organisation nominated by the advertiser.
"These requirements hold advertisers accountable for the ads they run on Facebook and Instagram," the company said in a statement announcing the rollout to Australia and other countries.
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Surge of virus misinformation stumps social media
The social media giants have found themselves desperately trying to control the plague of misinformation and phishing that has emerged during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Sheera Frenkel, Davey Alba and Raymond Zhong
Mar 9, 2020 — 6.16pm
First, there were conspiratorial whispers on social media that the coronavirus had been cooked up in a secret government lab in China. Then there were bogus medicines: gels, liquids and powders that immunised against the virus.
And then there were the false claims about governments and celebrities and racial unrest. Taiwan was covering up virus deaths, and the illness was spiralling out of control. Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who now runs a philanthropic organisation, was behind the spread of the virus. Italians were marching in the streets, accusing Chinese people of bringing the illness to their country. None of it was true.
As the coronavirus has spread across the world, so too has misinformation about it, despite an aggressive effort by social media companies to prevent its dissemination. Facebook, Google and Twitter said they were removing misinformation about the coronavirus as fast as they could find it, and were working with the World Health Organisation and other government organisations to ensure that people got accurate information.
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Draft National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capabilities Framework open for public consultation
9 March 2020
The Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA), on behalf of the Australian Digital Health Agency, is developing a National Nursing and Midwifery Digital Health Capabilities Framework in consultation with leading Australian nursing and midwifery organisations. This work reflects the agency’s commitment to building a digitally capable health workforce as defined in the National Digital Health Strategy.
Development of the framework is also timely as it coincides with the World Health Organization’s 2020 International Year of the Nurse and Midwife
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Australian privacy watchdog sues Facebook over Cambridge Analytica scandal
Begins legal proceedings after two-year investigation.
Australia’s privacy watchdog is pursuing Facebook in the federal court over privacy breaches relating to the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal.
The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner began proceedings against the social media giant on Monday, alleging “serious and/or repeated interferences” with privacy law.
OAIC
opened a formal investigation into the social media giant in April 2018 when it came to light that 311,127 Australians had been caught up in the global data harvesting scandal.
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'Systemic failures': Facebook facing legal action over Cambridge Analytica scandal
Updated March 9, 2020 — 4.15pmfirst published at 3.39pm
Australia's information and privacy commissioner has launched legal action against Facebook over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, accusing the social media giant of "serious and/or repeated interferences" with user privacy in breach of the law.
The Federal Court action follows a lengthy investigation into
the 2018 scandal, which affected tens of millions of users globally. The breach compromised the personal information of
more than 300,000 Australians, according to information commissioner Angelene Falk.
The commissioner has alleged the personal data of Facebook users was disclosed for purposes other than those for which it was collected — a breach of Australia's Privacy Act.
In a statement, Ms Falk said 311,127 Australian users of the platform had their data "exposed to be sold and used for purposes including political profiling, well outside users' expectations".
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Australian watchdog sues Facebook for repeated privacy breaches
Mar 9, 2020 — 5.07pm
The Australian Information Commissioner has sued Facebook for what could amount to billion of dollars in damages over privacy breaches related to Facebook's Cambridge Analytica scandal.
In a filing with the Federal Court in NSW, the Commissioner alleged that Facebook had breached the privacy of the 311,127 Australians who had been unwittingly caught up in the scandal, when their data was shared by Facebook with an app that was used by Cambridge Analytica for political profiling ahead of the US presidential election.
Each breach can be met with a $1.7 million civil fine by the Federal Court, but it was up to the court to decide whether each of the 311,127 alleged privacy breaches would warrant a $1.7 million fine – putting the upper limit of the lawsuit at almost $529 billion – or whether the entire scandal would amount to a single breach, or somewhere in between, a spokesperson for the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) told The Australian Financial Review.
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News fact checker coming to Australia
· 12:00AM March 9, 2020
Amid some media fearmongering around the coronavirus, a company that exposes shonky news websites in the US will begin analysing Australian sites from around July.
NewsGuard was formed in 2018 by co-chief executives Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz. Mr Brill is founder of Court TV and several publications on law and journalism. Mr Crovitz is a former publisher and opinion columnist at The Wall Street Journal.
In an interview with The Australian, Mr Brill said he regarded himself as more to the left of politics, while Mr Crovitz was more conservative. It’s a combination they hope customers appreciate.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
