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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Another interesting week. Waiting to see if Mr Hunt comes back and what he might do in the Digital Health Domain. We should know by the time you read this.
Lots of other stories this week. Enjoy!
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Coroner questions chief pharmacist’s real-time monitoring optimism
He says former soldier would not have sourced drugs if a system was in place
22nd May 2019
A coroner has expressed frustration at ongoing delays in the provision of real-time monitoring and suggested that a young former soldier might not have died if WA had such a system.
During an inquest into the oxycodone toxicity death of the 24-year-old Afghanistan veteran, Coroner Barry King also scoffed at a suggestion by the state’s chief pharmacist that the state would soon have a system.
The inquest heard that the former soldier was given a “significant supply” of oxycodone after injuring his hip and ankle in Afghanistan.
After returning to Australia, he was diagnosed with PTSD and, after further treatment for his injuries, quickly developed an addiction to opioids and benzodiazepines.
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Updated anxiety guidelines recommend online CBT first line
It is an effective, low-cost option, says psychiatry college
21st May 2019
Online CBT ticks many boxes as a first-line treatment for anxiety in adults, says a psychiatrist who has helped develop new clinical guidelines.
Associate Professor Lisa Lampe says digital therapies are an attractive option where access to psychologists is difficult or because of the wait-lists and costs involved.
New clinical practice guidelines from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) recommend CBT as first-line treatment and reaffirm SSRIs or SNRIs as first-line pharmacological therapies.
Professor Lampe, a member of the RANZCP Anxiety Disorders Working Group and associate professor at the University of Newcastle, says digital CBT provides easy access to patients.
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20 May 2019
Using apps to help prevent suicide
A prevention planning app, developed by Australian experts, reduces the risk of suicide in mentally ill patients and should be considered as part of a mental health treatment plan.
The free app, BeyondNow, has been designed for patients to help them monitor and manage their illness, and work through a suicide prevention plan in times of crisis. Among other features, the app helps patients who develop suicidal ideation by reminding them of reasons to keep living through their own written testimony and personal photographs.
Associate Professor Grant Blashki, GP and Lead Clinical Adviser of Beyondblue was discussing the app at the recent GPCE conference in Sydney and suggests GPs consider it as part of a patient’s therapy.
While originally launched in 2016 and already downloaded by more than 60,000 individuals, the effectiveness of the app could be enhanced if incorporated as part of a patient’s management plan – a form of digital contract, that if appropriate could be emailed between the patient, the doctor and family members.
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The Aussie startup trying to give robots a sense of touch
May 20, 2019 — 12.00am
When it comes to picking up objects humans beat robots hands down, though that could soon change.
"People can do amazing things with their hands: picking up objects of different sizes, shapes and weights,"says co-founder of robotics sensor startup Contactile, Heba Khamis.
"Robots can’t do that. They need to be pre-programmed for what they’re picking up. If you put an apple in [a robot's] way the next time, it doesn't know what to do with that."
Researchers are turning their minds to helping robots develop more human characteristics, whether that's senses or skills to help them more easily blend in with the surrounding environment.
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Australia to get an AI-powered map of drug-resistant germs
Profiling communities to tailor health solutions.
A national push to understand how antimicrobial resistance (AMR) impacts humans and livestock using artificial intelligence is underway across 14 organisations.
The AMR ‘knowledge engine’, supported by the Medical Research Future Fund and 14 research organisations, will use integrated temporal and spatial maps to predict future outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant drugs and inform interventions.
Globally, the problem of AMR is predicted to cause 10 million deaths a year by 2050 while adding US$100 trillion in additional costs to health systems.
However, the problem isn’t one just confined to health and hospital settings, the project’s chief investigator Steven Djordjevic said.
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Virtual visits likely to shape the future medical workforce, report says
Nathan Eddy | 21 May 2019
Digital technology has the potential to bring doctors and patients together online through teleconsultations and shared electronic health records, according to a Melbourne Institute of Health report.
The report examined the trends likely to influence the future of the medical practitioner workforce, which included the challenges and opportunities ongoing digitalization of the healthcare industry would present.
The study also noted Australia currently has Medicare items funding specialist video consultations for patients outside of major cities, where distance may prohibit face-to-face consultations or where the patient and specialist are at least 15 kilometers apart.
In addition, online consultations are already available from some private providers in Australia, but GP–patient online consultations do not attract Medicare rebates.
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DIY pancreas not so loopy after all, study shows
23rd May 2019
Dr Clark is a ‘looper’ — somebody with type 1 diabetes who wouldn’t wait for the TGA to approve a device for automating insulin delivery based on real-time continuous glucose monitoring (CGM).
Loopers opt for a DIY approach, hacking into insulin pumps and linking them to CGM devices via smartphones.
But even where official looping devices have been approved as medical devices, the evidence base for their efficacy is small.
This month, a French study of 63 patients became the largest randomised crossover trial on the subject. It was also the first study of a device approved by the EU regulator.
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Wearable brain devices sold with questionable claims
Neurotechnology device market compared to herbs and supplements sector by University of British Columbia researchers
Wearable ‘neurotechnology’ devices have in recent years hit the mainstream market; pitched to consumers as a way to improve memory and attention, boost brain fitness and control games and objects with the power of the mind.
The US$249 Muse headband brainwave reader, for example, features EEG sensors to measure the activity of a user’s brain and an app to help them “find calm and stay focused” with help from “the guiding sounds of the weather”.
Australia-founded firm Emotiv Insight’s ‘brainwear’ device is fitted with similar sensors and comes with an app that will “improve your mental performance and well-being” the company’s marketing materials claim. “A new drug-free, easy-to-use, and perfectly safe solution to stress,” claims MyBrain Technologies of its MeloMind device.
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Google AI can spot lung cancer like an expert
The technology is a work in progress but it could take diagnostics into a whole new realm.
Denise Grady
May 24, 2019 — 11.30pm
When it comes to diagnosing serious health issues, computers are beginning to outpace human experts. A new study by Google and several medical centres has found the machines are as good as, or better than, doctors at detecting tiny lung cancers on CT scans.
The technology is a work in progress and is not ready for widespread use, but the report, which was published on Monday in the journal Nature Medicine, offers a glimpse of how artificial intelligence will be used in medicine.
One of the most promising areas is recognising patterns and interpreting images – the same skills humans use to read microscope slides, X-rays, MRIs and other medical scans.
By feeding huge amounts of data from medical imaging into systems called artificial neural networks, researchers can train computers to recognise patterns linked to a specific condition, like pneumonia, cancer or a wrist fracture that would be hard for a person to see. The system follows an algorithm, or set of instructions, and learns as it goes. The more data it receives, the better it becomes at interpretation.
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National Health Information Platform replaces Electronic Health Record
Tuesday, 21 May 2019
eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth
The Ministry of Health is going to Cabinet this June to get approval to develop a detailed business case for a national Health Information Platform.
The Ministry has moved away from the idea of building a single Electronic Health Record, towards developing a national HIP that will enable data about a single patient to be shared, says deputy director data and digital Shayne Hunter.
Hunter was a keynote speaker at the Emerging Tech in Health conference in Christchurch on 21 May.
“We are moving beyond the agenda of ‘we will drive for a single EHR in a physical sense’,” he told attendees.
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Gen Z Aussies want better digital health services, Accenture study finds
Nathan Eddy | 21 May 2019
Young people are driving the digital healthcare market with demands for mobile and virtual services, according to an Accenture survey of 1,036 consumers (ages 18+) in Australia.
Digital options are gaining popularity, with more than a fifth (21 percent) of all respondents have used some form of virtual care -- up from just 12 percent in 2018.
Furthermore, the survey found nearly a quarter of respondents (23 percent) had already arranged on-demand health services through mobile apps or online tools.
Demand for online access to electronic medical records (EMRs) and the use of remote or telemonitoring devices to monitor and record health indicators are both on the rise, with the younger generation significantly more likely than baby boomers (ages 55 to 73) to be dissatisfied with in-person care.
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FHIR versus the EHR
As usual, my motivation is to help professionals and particularly publically funded organisations in the e-health sector understand the details (where the devil lives…) so that they may determine which standards are useful for which problems, and conversely, which are not. The bottom line is: a specification being a published de jure standard is no guarantee of quality or fitness for purpose, and indeed the committee-based nature of standards production is often a severe hindrance to quality. The best approach when considering using published standards for complex multi-year endeavours is: assume nothing, investigate everything.
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20 May 2019
ASX ANNOUNCEMENT
Alcidion signs contract with NSW Health to build and integrate components of a Child Digital Health Record (CDHR)
Adelaide, South Australia – Alcidion Group Ltd (ASX:ALC) today announces it has been
engaged to build and integrate two key components for a proposed national Child Digital Health Record (CDHR) which is to be trialled in two NSW Health Districts. The CDHR initiative will provide a digital record of children’s health and development information, currently captured in hard copy ‘baby books’. Total value of the contract is ~$700k, which will be recognised in FY2020 over the length of the project.
Alcidion will deliver two components as part of the project; an operational Child Data Hub (CDH) and a NSW Health Jurisdictional Translator that will take information from operational systems and provide it to the CDH. The solution will be architected using the latest Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standards and will be hosted in a Microsoft Azure cloud environment.
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PKS Holdings: Prognosis good for healthcare IT offering
- By Simon Herrmann
- 12:00AM May 21, 2019
PKS Holdings Limited
ASX code: PKS
Shares on offer: 97.5 million
Listing price: 20c
Market cap: $22.8m
Listing date: June 6
IT solution sales to the global healthcare market are estimated to be worth about $US134 billion a year, delivering electronic healthcare records, communications systems and many other IT solutions to hospitals and laboratories.
A small subset of the global healthcare IT market is the so-called Clinical Decision Support, or CDS, solutions market, which is worth about $US1bn. PKS Holdings, currently preparing for its initial public offering on the ASX, operates in this market.
PKS is an Australian healthcare technology company providing a subscription-based CDS system to healthcare organisation. The “RippleDown” software is designed to automate the human decision-making process within hospitals or laboratories based on rules set within the organisation by domain experts, thus improving operational efficiencies and reducing costs.
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Monash at frontier of health innovation
An innovative public health program against mosquito-borne diseases and groundbreaking technology that interfaces computers to the brain, for bionic vision, are two major research projects that will progress into critical new stages of commercial development, following the announcement of federal funding today.
Federal Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, today pledged almost $2 million to two Monash University led projects under the new Frontier Health and Medical Research Program. The program will invest $240 million over four years to support innovative ideas and discoveries with great potential for transformative impact on health care.
The funding announced today will support 10 research projects for one year with $1 million each to advance their technologies, ready to put forward a detailed plan for potential stage two investment. Stage two will support the best two applicants with up to $100 million each over five years.
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Epworth Healthcare to collaborate with Swinburne Uni on digital health
Quid pro quo.
Victoria’s largest not-for-profit private healthcare group, Epworth, has this week signed on to a three-year partnership with Swinburne University of Technology to leverage each institution’s expertise in digital health.
The relationship largely centres on health informatics management, with a particular emphasis on digital health research that will benefit the Epworth’s practise and Swinburne’s academics.
Although numerous health students from the university have completed practical placements at the healthcare provider, this is will be the first formal research collaboration between the two.
The basis if the research will be analysing health data to evaluate tech solutions that will improve the value of patient-focused healthcare and clinical outcomes.
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AIIA urges govt to pass encryption law amendments in first 100 days
The head of the Australian Information Industry Association, Ron Gauci, has sought an assurance from the re-elected Coalition Government that amendments to the encryption law, which was passed in December, will be adopted within its first 100 days of operation.
Congratulating Prime Minister Scott Morrison on the election result, Gauci said: “We are looking for a commitment that changes to the Assistance and Access Act, proposed by Labor in February, be passed through parliament in the first 100 days of the new government.
“It is time to execute these amendments so that industry and users of encrypted services have certainty over these new laws. The AIIA has made significant contributions and recommendations with respect to these amendments - but has yet to see the recommendations considered or adopted leaving industry unclear on the operational requirements.”
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NBN fixed wireless users get ACCC advice on slow speeds
Put up with them, exit - or delay signing up in the first place.
NBN Co is being given fresh motivation to fix congestion in its fixed wireless network as new rules and guidance take effect on how such services are sold, remediated and remedied.
The changes make fixed wireless services subject to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) NBN marketing rules for the first time.
What this means for retail service providers (RSPs) was already laid out last year.
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NBN Co upgrades 'vast majority' of packet-dropping backhaul links
Connected to some of its fixed wireless towers.
NBN Co has performed upgrades on “the vast majority” of 238 backhaul links identified last month as experiencing unacceptable levels of packet loss.
The network builder released more details of the metric it uses to determine what is and isn’t acceptable packet loss on Thursday, and provided an update on how it is remediating problem links.
The company last month said about one in ten - or 238 - microwave and fibre transmission links connected to its fixed wireless towers suffered from unacceptable levels of packet loss.
The packet loss was a contributor to problems seen by customers on the fixed wireless network, yet it wasn’t reflected in publicly reported congestion numbers.
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Tuesday, 21 May 2019 10:38
Three-fifths of NBN users now on higher speed plans: ACCC
Nearly 60% of the 5.2 million Australian households connected to the NBN at the end of March are on plans that offer 50Mbps or higher download speeds, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission says in its quarterly Wholesale Market Indicators Report.
The ACCC said NBN residential connections rose by 8.5% in the March quarter, up from 4.8 million at the end of December 2018.
More than three million were on services of 50Mbps or above, indicating that the take-up of these plans had grown substantially following the introduction of discount offers and wholesale bundled products by NBN Co.
But there were still a million consumers on the entry-level 12Mbps speed at the end of March, though this fell by 200,000 in the previous six months.
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Game and shame: Internet providers called out again on NBN speed claims
New metric targets truth in advertising, but it can also be manipulated.
Internet providers are under renewed pressure to scale back their advertised “typical” evening speed claims for NBN services following the release of a new metric that shames alleged under-performers.
The fifth instalment of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) NBN speed monitoring report [pdf], released a fortnight ago, included a new chart showing the “proportion of busy hours where advertised speed was achieved” for each major retail service provider (RSP).
TPG was shown to meet its advertised busy hour speeds 83.4 percent of the time, Telstra 76.3 percent of the time and Optus 74.6 percent of the time.
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Monday, 20 May 2019 10:09
Turnaround in customer satisfaction levels with telcos: report
Customers have become increasingly satisfied over the past 12 months with the service they receive from telecommunications providers, according to a newly published survey, despite previously reduced levels of satisfaction with telcos.
The latest quarterly national survey, found that 83%-84% of customers responding are satisfied or neutral with the overall level of service from their telecommunications provider in the last three reports, with satisfaction increasing over the past year.
John Stanton, the CEO of telecommunications industry lobby group, the Communications Alliance, which commissioned the research by Roy Morgan Research, says that “after disruptions in the marketplace contributed to reduced levels of satisfaction in our customer satisfaction data throughout 2017 and the beginning of 2018, we are pleased to see an improving trend over the past three quarterly reports”.
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Optus expands commercial 5G services
5G Home Broadband offering to be available in more suburbs
Optus says that by the end of the month customers in parts of the western Sydney suburbs of Bonnyrigg and Minchinbury, Niagara Park on the NSW Central Coast, Cook in the ACT and the Brisbane suburb of Kenmore will be able to order 5G services.
The telco is using equipment from both Ericsson and Nokia in its rollout of 5G. Earlier this month it detailed 50 5G sites that will be built by Ericsson over the coming months. Twenty of those sites will be in NSW and 30 will be in Victoria.
Optus Networks managing director Dennis Wong said that its first commercial 5G service in the Sydney suburb of Glendenning had achieved peak download speeds of 295 megabits per second and an average speed of 100Mbps.
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Monday, 20 May 2019 11:35
Optus to offer 5G to selected users, top speed 295Mbps
Australia's second biggest telco Singtel Optus will give select customers in five suburbs the opportunity to sample its 5G Home Broadband product by the end of the month.
In a statement, Optus said the chosen suburbs were Bonnyrigg and Minchinbury in Sydney’s west, Niagara Park on the NSW Central Coast, Cook in the ACT and Kenmore outside Brisbane, adding that it had more than 70 sites that were 5G ready.
The customers were selected following a campaign seeking expressions of interest which was launched in January.
Optus Networks managing director Dennis Wong said the first commercial Optus 5G Home Broadband service in Glendenning in Sydney’s west had already achieved peak download speeds of 295Mbps and an average download speed of 100Mbps.
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Revamped Google Glass 2 aims more powerful AR at the enterprise
Google renews its focus on enterprise augmented reality with the Glass Enterprise Edition 2; it packs a better camera and faster processor.
Google this week updated its workplace-focused Glass augmented reality (AR) headset, offering a more powerful processor and improved camera – a “significant improvement” over its predecessor, according Anshel Sag, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.
Google unveiled the consumer version of Glass in 2013 to much fanfare, but little commercial success. It was relaunched as Glass Enterprise Edition two years ago, after Google decided the headset was better suited to workers who need hands-free computing – such as in manufacturing, logistics and healthcare. Development was also moved to the X “moonshot” division within Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
With the launch of the latest version, Glass Enterprise Edition 2, the Glass team has now returned to the core business, the company said in a blog post.
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Enjoy!
David.
