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This weekly blog is to explore the news around 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 were dated 6 December, 2018 and we have seen none since!
It is worth pointing out that it was only in last little while ( beginning end July 2020 ) the ADHA took down the notification regarding the most recent minutes notification. Embarrassed I guess – as they should be! I wonder will the new CEO make a difference?
The new CEO has been in place 4+ weeks – no new minutes obvious yet, or any other major improvements!
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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Facebook and encryption experts unite against 'Sith Lord' Dutton
Paul Smith Technology editor
Oct 23, 2020 – 3.59pm
Facebook has defended its use of end-to-end encryption on all of its messaging platforms, after Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton accused it of helping paedophiles, terrorists and criminals to prosper and Departmental Secretary Mike Pezzullo likened it to the Galactic Empire in Star Wars.
Facebook said encryption was the best technology available to protect people's private information from scammers, hackers and foreign interference, while Australian cyber security and privacy experts backed up the social media giant, saying the government's comments and legislation regarding encryption were harmful to consumers and industry, and ignored how technology works.
Mr Dutton is currently seeking parliamentary support for controversial new laws that would enable authorities to monitor the dark web, and has previously upset the local tech industry with anti-encryption legislation in the Telecommunications and other Legislation Amendment (TOLA) Act, which lets security agencies force companies to decrypt messages on their platforms.
"It's impossible to create a backdoor where only the 'good guys' could gain access – bad actors will try to access it too," a Facebook spokesperson said when asked about Mr Dutton's remarks. "Facebook has led the industry in developing new ways to prevent, detect and respond to abuse while maintaining high security, and we will continue to do so."
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https://www.thebigsmoke.com.au/2020/10/24/australia-an-innovative-nation-lost-to-luddites/
Australia, an innovative nation lost to luddites
by Laurie Patton | Oct 24, 2020 | Business, Featured, Ladder, The Big Smoke Arena |
Once upon a time, Australia was a land of invention and innovation. Sadly, we’re turning into a nation of luddites.
Australia invented the technology underpinning Wi-Fi, along with the ‘black box’ flight recorder, ultrasound scanners and the heart pacemaker – just to mention some of our globally recognised innovations. We have an enviable track record when it comes to technology.
And yet, apparently Prime Minister Scott Morrison just wants us to adopt other country’s technologies these days. This week he told us, “we’re not trying to create the next Silicon Valley here in Australia. That’s not it. We’ve just got to be the best at adopting. Taking it on board. Making it work for us”.
What a sort-sighted and inadequate approach from the nation’s leader. Sadly, we are witnessing a trend that does not auger well for our future in an emerging digitally-enabled world. Former PM Malcolm Turnbull talked boldly about an “Innovation Nation”.
However, in an earlier role as communications minister he had masterminded the destruction of a state-of-the-art broadband network – replacing the rollout of fibre with 100 year old copper wires. Millions of us struggle with Internet speeds that are barely acceptable now, but which will prove totally inadequate in years to come.
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https://wolandscat.net/2020/10/22/clinical-decision-logic-fun/
Clinical Decision Logic Fun
How close can we get to making a clinical decision logic language look like the published guidelines which it is used to encode?
Below is an openEHR Decision Logic Module (DLM) example, in the current form of the openEHR Decision Language specification currently under development. Why another language? Well I’ll answer that with: show me a language that does this, and we’ll use it instead (e.g. why not ProForma, Arden, GLIF etc?).
Of course this language doesn’t yet solve all the problems, but we are taking two particular challenges seriously:
- the problem of ‘subject variables’ (aka ‘curly braces’ or data access problem);
- getting the cognitive level of the language as close as possible to the cognitive level of the source materials and authors’ thinking.
As background, our conceptual basics here.
The following logic module is the logic part of the RCHOPS21 guideline published by the NHS Thames Valley Cancer Network. Our encoding of this into Task Plan + DLM is shown here; below is the DLM, colourised in a way that future tools will hopefully support.
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Facebook facilitates sex abuse, says Peter Dutton
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton has unloaded on Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, saying the company was facilitating child sexual abuse at “incomprehensible” levels and its move towards end-to-end encryption would stop children from being rescued.
Mr Dutton hit out at the “unconscionable” conduct of Facebook and other tech giants he said profited from child sex abuse and were making it harder for police to protect children.
“We know particularly in Facebook’s case that they are taking a deliberate decision with end-to-end encryption to starve referrals of matters that otherwise in previous years would have been made to law-enforcement agencies and investigators,” he said.
“Children have been saved because of those referrals in the past and they won’t be saved in the future because of the actions of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook and others.
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23 October 2020
RACGP Infowars, medical and social media, truth, and other stories
Posted by Jeremy Knibbs
Let me start with a disclaimer:
In this editorial I’ll be playing the role of Alex Jones (Infowars), and throwing the odd variously sized pebble from my largely glass house, in attempt to make a few points about journalism, transparency, reliable information and the Australian medical media. That is to say, if you can, please don’t write to me and say I’m conflicted writing this piece … of course I am. But maybe read it anyway and see if some of the information not in dispute helps you understand better your day-to-day information habits in Australian medicine.
Chatting to a very knowledgeable and ‘inside’ GP personality the other day, I was taken aback just a little when they admitted they hadn’t really even considered that the daily email service, NewsGP, was in fact, produced (‘produced’ … crafted perhaps?) by the RACGP. The topic came up because of the recent RACGP exam failure scandal, where the RACGP news service had no initial coverage of the massive failure, but eventually published a story when it was fairly clear that the board and executive needed to apologise and explain a few things.
I suggested that perhaps some of her assumptions were based on the branding of the service, “NewsGP”, which does suggest it’s news for GPs. I asked if she knew why the RACGP had originally started the service, and of course, she didn’t. That story is below.
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US taking on Google proves tide is turning against Silicon Valley giants
That the Trump administration has followed up the Democrat-led antitrust congressional investigation into the digital monopolies by actually going after Google is a unique bipartisan event, and it shows that public opinion is turning against Big Tech.
The House of Representatives Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, chaired by David Cicilline, a Democrat from Rhode Island, released its 400-page report on October 6, following a 16-month inquiry into Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple.
It has been an extraordinary process. The committee’s staff went through 1.3 million documents, they interviewed 240 “market participants”, including former employees, for thousands of hours, and held seven public hearings, including grilling both Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.
And now this week Donald Trump’s Attorney-General, William Barr, launched an aggressive antitrust lawsuit against Google.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/where-was-racgps-exam-backup-plan
Where was the RACGP's exam back-up plan?
The college is being accused of failing to meet the standards it demands of the specialty
23rd October 2020
In this hard-hitting article on the RACGP's aborted fellowship exams, Dr Hash Abdeen and Dr Chris Moy say the need for adequate contingency planning became obvious in the aftermath of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians' failures with its online exams two years ago.
With the careers of more trainees now in turmoil, they say it is time to revisit the use of 'make-or-break' exams to assess medical skills and competencies.
The collapse of the RACGP exams a fortnight ago was unacceptable by anyone’s standards — not least the college’s own.
Standard C3.3 of its recently released accreditation standards for general practices requires practices to have “an emergency response plan for unexpected events, such as natural disasters, pandemic diseases, or unplanned absences of clinical team members”.
So, in a year when GP training has faced enormous uncertainty due to COVID-19 and various reversals in government policy, the least our trainees could have expected was that the college had contingency plans in place for their exams.
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There’s no such thing as a fair fight with Google
Based on first quarter 2020 earnings, Google will report net income this year of $US39bn on revenue of $US324.6bn, which provides some context to the $US16bn a year the company is paying Apple to be the default search engine on its internet browser.
The next time Google Australia boss Mel Silva campaigns on the grounds of fairness the first question to ask is just why a company with 92 per cent of the global search market requires such payments.
Certainly it doesn’t say much about the company’s innovation. If the product was so compelling why would Google need to spend so much defending its market share?
The barriers to entry are suffice to say extraordinary set against a $US1.4trn company in a sweetheart deal with its mobile phone competitor.
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ACCC warns about messaging services
23 October, 2020
Australia’s competition watchdog says Australians are overwhelmingly using Facebook and Apple messaging services to keep in contact with each other during the pandemic. It has warned that messaging services provide another opportunity for companies to leverage users’ personal data.
The ACCC’s first Digital Platforms Services Inquiry interim report says the use of online private messaging services has grown significantly during the pandemic, as workplaces and schools moved to remote access and people sought alternatives to face-to-face communication.
It says Facebook Messenger had an estimated 14.7 million monthly active users in Australia in June 2020, while Facebook-owned WhatsApp had an estimated 8 million monthly active users.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims says the findings show that the big players have “a significant competitive advantage over small entrants”.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c72333b0-486c-4ec9-89d1-f0347c7eace2
The Right to be Forgotten
What is the ‘Right to be Forgotten’?
The ‘right to be forgotten’ stems from the 2014 decision in the landmark ‘Google Spain’ case. This case found that European Union (EU) citizens have the right to demand data about them be deleted from a search engine if, among other grounds, consent to hold the data has been revoked and the data is no longer required. This right was enshrined into article 17 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) entitled the ‘right to erasure’.
The 2019 decision
After the 2014 decision, Google introduced a geo-blocking feature preventing users within the EU from viewing de-referenced links in accordance with the right to erasure, however, this allowed users on other versions of the platform outside the EU to view the de-referenced links.
In 2015 CNIL, a French privacy regulator served a notice ordering Google to apply the right to be forgotten onto all versions of its platform. The 2019 case of Google Inc v CNIL is the result of Google challenging this notice. CNIL argued that Google was in breach of the right to erasure by permitting users outside the EU to view the de-referenced links.
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https://hnc.org.au/events/digital-health-basics-pharmacy-xhp-x4
Digital Health Infrastructure Basics for Pharmacy
ADHA Propaganda
The implementation of electronic prescriptions is well underway, with a managed roll-out occurring in some regions across Australia.
Pharmacy staff are encouraged to implement the electronic prescription readiness checklist to ensure they are ready to accept electronic prescriptions.
This webinar will address the technical prerequisites of dispensing electronic prescriptions, including how to connect to the Healthcare Identifiers Service and the digital certificates required within your dispensary software.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions.
Venue: Webinar
Date/Time: Part day | Wed 28 Oct 2020, 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm (1hr) AEDT
Event Organiser: Australian Digital Health Agency
Contact: Australian Digital Health Agency
Phone: 1800 723 471
Email: Click here
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https://ajp.com.au/news/lockdown-sees-e-script-boost/
Lockdown sees e-script boost
More than 400,000 original electronic scripts have now been created in Australia, driven by rapid uptake in Melbourne and Victoria over the past six weeks
The volume of e-prescriptions being written in the country is “increasing exponentially”, said Andrew Matthews, Director of the Medicines Safety Program at the Australian Digital Health Agency (AHDA), during a webinar hosted by Fred IT Group last week.
“The volume of prescriptions – it was about 26,000 in August, about 170,000 in September, and the growth even in just this first week or so of October has been more than 70,000 in the week,” said Mr Matthews.
Original scripts, not including repeats, have now clocked over 400,000 across the country, he confirmed to AJP on Wednesday. More than 80% of these have been created in the last six weeks alone.
Rapid uptake has been mainly driven by the broad expansion of e-scripts throughout Melbourne and Victoria, he said. E-script capability was expanded across Melbourne in late August, then made available to the rest of Victoria in late September in context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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E-prescriptions are coming. But what are they? And is this the end of paper ones?
October 22, 2020 3.35pm AEDT
Authors
Associate Lecturer Pharmacy Practice, University of Sydney
Lecturer (Pharmacy), University of Sydney
Electronic prescriptions (or e-prescriptions) are being rolled out in stages across Australia after being used in Victoria during the pandemic.
E-prescriptions have been common in countries such as the United States and Sweden for more than ten years. In Australia, a fully electronic paperless system has been planned for some time.
Since the arrival of COVID-19, and a surge in the uptake of telehealth, the advantages of e-prescriptions have become compelling.
So what are they? How does it all work? And is this the end of paper prescriptions?
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Big tech has changed how we live - but we need to wrest back control
By Andrew Leigh and Nick Terrell
October 22, 2020 — 12.00am
The US Department of Justice's case against Google is the biggest competition lawsuit against a tech company in two decades. Facebook, Apple and Amazon are reportedly also under investigation. In a relatively short space of time, these behemoths have come to dominate the sharemarket, reshape the economy and change the way we live.
For starters, we are spending more time on our phones, a trend that is worrying mental health experts. Google has been central to this transformation. It now dominates not just the search engine market but is one of the main players when it comes to online advertising, video streaming, online maps, virtual assistants and mobile operating systems.
The change has happened fast. The iPhone was first released in 2007. The first commercial Android touchscreen phones launched in 2008. Key social media platforms also had their genesis around this period, including Facebook (publicly launched in 2006), Twitter (founded 2006), Tumblr (2007), WhatsApp (2009), Instagram (2010), Snapchat (2010), Pinterest (2010) and TikTok (2012).
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'Consequences catastrophic': Dutton says cyber attacks on critical infrastructure rising
October 22, 2020 — 5.00am
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton will warn Australia must prepare to counter prolonged and catastrophic cyber attacks on critical infrastructure that could disrupt entire industries.
Mr Dutton will say Australia is continuing to experience a rise in cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, warning that a serious penetration of Australia's energy sector could mean "widespread failure" of electricity networks, disrupting hospitals, transport, banking and food supplies.
Australia should brace itself for catastrophic cyber attacks on critical infrastructure according to Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.
Speaking at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age's National Security Summit on Thursday, Mr Dutton will say Australia needs to harden its networks against these threats.
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https://apo.org.au/node/308474
Measuring Australia’s digital divide: the Australian digital inclusion index 2020
22 Oct 2020
Julian Thomas, Jo Barraket, Chris K. Wilson, Indigo Holcombe-James, Jenny Kennedy, Ellie Rennie, Scott Ewing, Trent MacDonald
Publisher
RMIT University, Centre for Social Impact, Telstra
Resources
Measuring Australia’s digital divide: the Australian digital inclusion index 2020 2.55 MB
Measuring Australia’s digital divide: dataset 2014-2020 551.63 KB
Description
The COVID-19 pandemic has underlined the critical importance of digital inclusion in contemporary Australia. With the shutdown of schools, businesses, services, shops and meeting places across the country, the digital transformation of education, government, business and community services has accelerated.
However, the rapid acceleration of the digital economy and society is emerging at a time when some members of the community still face real barriers to online participation. The impact of the pandemic has therefore been particularly difficult for some Australians and may have lasting consequences. Older people, families without adequate internet access, and vulnerable Australians are among those who have been especially isolated during the pandemic.
The Australian Digital Inclusion Index (ADII) was first published in 2016. This edition provides the most comprehensive picture of Australia’s online participation to date. The ADII measures three key dimensions of digital inclusion: access, affordability, and digital ability. It shows how these dimensions change over time, according to people’s social and economic circumstances, as well as across geographic locations, over a seven-year period from 2014 to 2020.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/8-things-gps-need-know-about-escripts
8 things GPs need to know about e-scripts
The rollout of the national electronic prescribing system continues
21st October 2020
The next wave of GPs to be able to issue e-scripts as part of the national electronic prescribing system will be based in Sydney.
On Wednesday, the Australian Digital Health Agency announced the NSW capital would be the next site in the stage expansion across the country, with GPs from Hornsby Shire to the north, the city of Campbelltown in the south and Penrith city in the west able to start offering patients the choice of paper or electronic scripts sometime this month.
However, the agency did not provide a firm date for implementation.
E-scripts have already been tested in select locations since May, with GP Dr David Corbet from Anglesea in Victoria the first doctor to write a token-based script (for an asthma medication) to be dispensed by a pharmacy.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/fellowship-exam-disaster-what-went-wrong
Fellowship exam disaster: What went wrong
The RACGP takes action in the wake of a debacle that left registrars’ nerves in tatters
21st October 2020
By Paul Smith
As the RACGP organises a time and place for the resits, Australian Doctor's Paul Smith examines the likely fallout.
There is no denying it was a very bad day.
The anguish experienced by 1400 GP registrars during the failure of the Key Feature Problem (KFP) exam, expressed with grim eloquence by registrars themselves, is testament to that.
“People have been under enormous stress for months and months, we’re all really fragile.
"We are running on empty because you empty the tank in preparation for this exam," one of the registrars said.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=87efac44-49c8-4ea9-8558-f35413fe107c
Protecting your digital health
Track and trace smartphone applications used in the fight against COVID 19 are representative of a relatively new industry falling between the healthcare, IT, medical devices and pharmaceutical sector.
Digital health addresses health issues faced by patients and their healthcare providers. It includes health and wellness applications, wearable technologies, mobile health, telehealth, medical imaging, electronic medical records, robotic surgery, personal genomics and diagnostics.
Traditionally conservative healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are joining forces with cutting-edge digital technology companies, to keep pace with the industry’s shift. This change does not come without challenges including:
Privacy issues regarding the use of patient data require digital health companies to comply with laws for protecting or de-identifying protected health information (PHI) in the countries where the PHI is gathered or used.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=bfcac896-1c14-43c0-ba51-e55e97ce898b
Artificial Intelligence improves clinical trials
In case anyone missed it: attention on AI’s application to healthcare is apparently at ‘peak hype’. With the volume of healthcare data doubling every 2 to 5 years, it is no surprise that many are using AI to make sense of such vast amounts of data, and development of medical AI technologies is progressing rapidly. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed vulnerabilities in healthcare systems around the world, highlighting the need for technological interventions in healthcare. In line with these trends, the healthcare AI market is expected to grow from US$2 billion in 2018 to US$36 billion by 2025.
The breadth of AI’s application in healthcare is impressive, ranging from diagnostic chat bots to AI robot-assisted surgery. Other examples include AI enhanced microscopes that can more efficiently scan for harmful bacteria in blood samples; efficient and enhanced scanning for abnormalities in radiographic images; and AI algorithm analysis of tone, language and facial expressions to detect mental illness.
But as exciting as the prospects of these AI uses are, exaggerated and unsupported claims about AI’s capabilities in healthcare (such as its superiority over clinicians) threaten to undermine public trust in AI. This is especially important in healthcare, where patients are already in a vulnerable position, the stakes are high and the margin for error is low.
AI’s validity and effectiveness in medicine has been difficult to assess given the lack of standardisation in testing and trial design. In March, a study in the British Medical Journal warned that patients could suffer if public and commercial appetite for healthcare AI outpaces a rigorous evidence base for the effectiveness of AI technologies.
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https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=389886198489412&story_fbid=840436330101061
MAMAs Morning Show
20 October 2020 ADHA Propaganda
MY HEALTH RECORD
I spoke with Steve Renouf about My Health Record today on the show. He answered lots of questions about the digital record and who can access your information and who can't. Follow the link below and you can decide for yourself if you want all your records in the one place and accessible by medical professionals.
If you do register for My Health Record remember to change the SETTINGS to suit your privacy requirements.
https://www.myhealthrecord.gov.au/
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US accuses Google of illegally protecting monopoly
David McCabe and Cecilia Kang
Oct 21, 2020 – 3.45am
Washington | The US Justice Department accused Google of maintaining an illegal monopoly over search and search advertising in a lawsuit filed Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT), the government's most significant legal challenge to a tech company's market power in a generation.
In its suit, filed in a federal court in Washington, the agency accused Google, a unit of Alphabet, of illegally maintaining its monopoly over search through several exclusive business contracts and agreements that lock out competition.
Such contracts include Google's payment of billions of dollars to Apple to place the Google search engine as the default for iPhones. By using contracts to maintain its monopoly, competition and innovation has suffered, the suit says.
Jeffrey Rosen, the deputy attorney general who led the investigation, said that Google "has maintained its monopoly power through exclusionary practices that are harmful to competition".
"Google is the gateway to the internet and a search advertising behemoth," he said.
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https://www.afr.com/technology/us-election-facebook-s-political-balancing-act-20201021-p5672a
Facebook has a lot to lose in the US election
The social media behemoth's success, or failure, in protecting the integrity of the November 3 election may dictate how it is permitted to operate in future, as regulators circle the tech sector.
Hannah Murphy
Oct 21, 2020 – 10.00am
It was a “crazy idea”, Mark Zuckerberg declared in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election, that fake news on Facebook had any influence over the result. But, within 12 months, the Facebook founder had been forced to apologise amid revelations that Russia had used the world’s largest social media platform to spread falsehoods and stir up tensions as part of a targeted election interference campaign.
Four years on, Mr Zuckerberg is at pains to prove that his platform is rooting out the deluge of misinformation, voter suppression and violence-inciting content that has already begun to proliferate on its apps. It has a lot at stake. Facebook’s success, or failure, in protecting the integrity of the November 3 election may dictate how it is permitted to operate in future, with global regulators circling the technology sector.
It is walking a political tightrope domestically. The company is wary of angering US President Donald Trump, who has claimed that social media platforms are biased against Republicans and has already instigated a review into the immunity granted to them for the user-generated content they publish. But, say some analysts, Facebook is also trying to appease Mr Trump's rival, Joe Biden, whose Democratic party is proposing more stringent antitrust rules.
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Wednesday, 21 October 2020 06:51
US files anti-trust suit against Google, 11 states join action
The US has filed a civil anti-trust suit against search firm Google, saying it was aimed at stopping the company, which dominates the sector, "from unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anti-competitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets and to remedy the competitive harms".
Eleven states — Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas — had joined the federal action, the Department of Justice said in a statement.
The DoJ said Google, as a company that did not lack money given its market value of US$1 trillion (A$1.4 trillion), was the monopoly gatekeeper to the Internet for billions.
"For years, Google has accounted for almost 90% of all search queries in the US and has used anti-competitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising," it said.
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https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/racgp/racgp-ceo-answers-member-questions-on-exams-gp-rem
RACGP CEO answers questions on exams, remuneration and more
newsGP details the key moments from a recent extended Q&A with new college Chief Executive Officer Dr Matthew Miles.
20 Oct 2020
Newly
appointed RACGP CEO Dr Matthew Miles recently sat down with the Registrar
Representative on the RACGP Board Dr Kystyna de Lange to provide an update
on the college and several key issues, including exams, remuneration and rural
workforce shortages.
Dr Miles revealed that the Board has recently approved the its Strategic Plan,
which will set the direction of the college for the coming years, and that the
key priorities will be increasing advocacy work and ensuring the RACGP is a member-centric
organisation.
He went on to address the recent issues and subsequent cancellation of the Key
Feature Problem (KFP) exam and Applied Knowledge Test (AKT), before answering
specific member questions.
Exam
outage
Dr Miles expressed the college’s ‘deep regret’ over having to cancel the exams,
and explained what the RACGP has done and is continuing to do to help all those
affected.
‘Though [it was] a necessary thing to do and the right thing to do, it was
really disrupting and problematic for people and we fully understand the
sacrifice that our candidates go through to get themselves to these exams,’ he
said.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9f82636c-90ca-424f-8a99-b794c79510c0
How can Australia become a medical AI innovator in a COVID-reset
AI’s potential in medicine has rarely felt more important than now. But is Australia’s regulation helping us fully realise that potential? How can Australia become a medical AI innovator in a COVID-reset world?
To mark the 2020 Australia-Israel Innovation Summit, medical AI industry leader Emma Hossack explored these questions and more with Gilbert + Tobin lawyer Anna Belgiorno-Nettis. Emma is the CEO of the Medical Software Industry Association, an Australian Digital Health Agency Director, and past CEO of healthcare software provider Extensia.
Transcript
Anna Belgiorno-Nettis (00:09):
Around the world AI's potential in medicine has rarely felt more important than now. But is Australia's regulation, helping us fully realize that potential? How can Australia become a medical AI innovator in a COVID reset world? Hello, I'm Anna Belgiorno-Nettis, a lawyer at Gilbert and Tobin. Today, we'll be exploring those questions and more, in a podcast marking the 2020 Australia Israel Innovation Summit. I'm joined by one of Australia's leaders in this space, Emma Hossack. Emma is the CEO of the Medical Software Industry of Australia. She's also an Australian Digital Health Agency director, and she's the past CEO of healthcare software provider, Extensia. Emma, it is so wonderful to get to talk to you today.
Emma Hossack (01:05):
My pleasure to talk to you.
Anna Belgiorno-Nettis (01:07):
So I wanted to start off with your arrival into this industry, you know full well that medical software is booming at the moment and that was before COVID, let alone now. You had the foresight to join that rollercoaster pretty early on. When you made that jump from your private practice job as a corporate lawyer, what made you choose the tech industry and specifically health related tech?
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COVID-19 surge in home tech shows urgent need for NBN upgrade
John Davidson Columnist
Oct 20, 2020 – 12.00am
The coronavirus pandemic has contributed to a "massive uptick" in demand for smart home services that do not work properly on the NBN initially built by the government, a new study has found.
With Australians spending more time at home than ever due to COVID-19-related restrictions, demand has surged for internet of things (IoT) devices such as home security cameras, video doorbells and smart locks, according to the report, the Telsyte Australian IoT@Home Market Study 2020.
That surge has led to a dramatic increase in demand for broadband connections that have not just the fast download speeds the NBN has focused on, but also the fast upload speeds required by IoT devices that have video cameras built in, the study found.
The mixed-technology model of the NBN, which the Coalition only recently abandoned, provided highly asymmetric broadband connections with moderately fast download but very slow upload speeds. The recently announced fibre upgrade to the NBN, due to be rolled out over the next few years, will dramatically improve upload speeds, however.
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https://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/technology/article/telehealth-beyond-covid-19-11126139
Telehealth beyond COVID-19
By Bill Zeng, APAC Chief
Technology Officer at Poly
Tuesday, 20 October, 2020
The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the growth of remote delivery, with face-to-face industries being catalysed into virtual services. Telehealth is one of the key virtual services that people have started to access. The pandemic has created a need for low- or no-contact health care for many vulnerable sectors, such as aged care, as well as the many thousands of people in self-isolation and quarantine.
Australia has a long history with telehealth. Due to the country’s large geography and remote and rural communities, telemedicine has existed in some form from as early as telegraph infrastructure. There are documented cases of its use as early as 1874 in enabling care for a wounded person.
In more recent times, but long before the pandemic, there have been moves to expand the use of technology in health care — to bridge the ‘tyranny of distance’ and provide more immediate, efficient and accessible health services to people in Australia.
The Australian National Consultative Committee on Health (ANCCH; originally ‘e-Health’) was founded in 2004 published the National Telehealth Strategy in 2012. This paper identified several key principles for technology in delivering quality remote patient care. They included using open standards, viewing the carriage of telehealth data as a utility, focusing on key medical conditions that offer most return to the community, and combining telehealth services with other services to achieve widespread adoption by the clinical community. The committee also advocated for telehealth to be viewed more universally than just as a geographic solution, stating, “The current discussion often focuses on the rural-to-urban use of telehealth. We suggest that is less importan[t] than the use of telehealth to break down the divide between general practitioners, allied health, specialists and the acute sector. Telehealth is fundamentally about enhancing team-based care, collaboration and patient access.”
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https://itwire.com/security/how-real-is-ai.html
How real is AI?
The lack of clarity as to what constitutes AI has contributed to skepticism regarding the reality of its delivery.
In this, the fourth in the 'controversial question' series, we attempted to pour some cold water on AI in the IT industry. Obviously, and quite reasonably, the industry fights back.
This is the question we asked: "Someone once said to us, 'Machine Learning is written in Python, Artificial Intelligence is written in PowerPoint.' Do you agree, disagree, have an alternate view?"
The protagonists and the skeptics reveal themselves quite clearly in the responses.
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Comments more than welcome!
David.
