Here are a few I have come across this week.
Note: Each link is followed by a title and a paragraph or two. 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 payment.
General Comment:
It seems it will be an interesting week with the HI Service Legislation front and centre.
Outside this all I am hearing is that we have considerable policy chaos within DoHA on the Personally Controlled EHR leaving space in the middle for NEHTA to try and acquire more influence than it should have in the e-Health space.
Apparently at recent presentations NEHTA is seeming just a little ‘too big for its boots’ according to correspondents who have attended recently.
As I have often said we need much improved national e-Health leadership and governance and NEHTA seems very unlikely to provide this in my view.
As the recent poll we had here showed any EHR program (if it is to happen) needs to be managed at arm’s length from Government and definitely not by NEHTA.
It also seems there are some major issues in Health Policy in general:
See here:
PM's adviser quits citing lack of vision
MELISSA FYFE AND JILL STARK
June 20, 2010
EXCLUSIVE
KEVIN RUDD'S top mental health adviser has quit, accusing the government of a lack of vision and commitment to a problem that affects millions of Australians.
National Advisory Council on Mental Health chairman John Mendoza tendered his resignation on Friday in a letter to Health Minister Nicola Roxon and council members.
In the letter, obtained by The Sun-Herald, he said he had regarded his appointment as the ''most important public service responsibility of my life'' and felt a ''deep sense of disappointment'' in quitting.
''It is now abundantly clear that there is no vision or commitment from the Rudd government to mental health,'' he wrote.
And here:
Kevin Rudd's health reform plan still on drawing board
- Sid Maher and Nicolas Perpitch
- From: The Australian
- June 18, 2010
KEVIN Rudd's $50 billion hospitals reform plan faces further changes and is unlikely to be debated in parliament before the federal election, sparking opposition claims that the biggest rewrite of the national health system since Medicare is in disarray.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon yesterday conceded the government faced "an enormously complex implementation strategy" and might have to make changes to its reforms as it fleshed out the detail of the policy.
But opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said it was "clear that the government hasn't yet sorted out the detail" and was in disarray on health.
And here:
PM Kevin Rudd dumps National Funding Authority
- Sid Maher
- From: The Australian
- June 17, 2010
KEVIN Rudd has abandoned the top layer in his $50 billion health reform plan, scrapping the National Funding Authority, which was to oversee payments to the states as part of his boost to public hospital funding.
The body would have overseen the federal fund that will pay state funding authorities and then local hospital networks - meaning the commonwealth government will have one less body monitoring its injection into the state systems.
Last night, the opposition claimed the change meant a return to "business as usual" for health funding.
All a bit of a mess it would seem.
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Australia to get optional EPR
11 Jun 2010
The Australian Government has announced plans to spend €331m (£275m) over the next two years to provide an electronic patient record for every citizen.
The plans, outlined in the government’s 2010-11 budget papers, show that each patient that opts into the plans will have a summary of their health information held electronically.
The summary will include clinical data such as conditions, treatments, medications, test results, allergies and alerts.
The EPR will be rolled out in stages, beginning with those people who have most contact with the health service and specifically those with long term or complex health conditions, older people and mothers and newborn babies.
Patients will not only be able to decide who gets to see their records, but what is to be stored in the files. The system will be evaluated following the implementation at the initial sites.
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Mobile tech helps IVF patients
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
The interactive electronic system, HealthyMe, allows patients to self-manage medical records, log test results and communicate with others – from doctors to fellow patients.
IVF Australia will offer the service to patients within a year, after a successful trial with 17 patients. The results were presented at an e-health symposium at UNSW this week.
"The women wanted an e-health system that was more deeply integrated with their care, accessible through their Blackberries and iPhones," says Professor Enrico Coiera, Director of the Centre for Health Informatics at UNSW, which is marking its 10th anniversary.
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IVF patients to keep tabs on treatment with iPhones
KATE BENSON
June 15, 2010
WOMEN undergoing IVF treatments could soon track their injections, blood tests and scans through their BlackBerries or iPhones, in a move expected to revolutionise the way doctors deal with patients.
Doctors at IVF Australia, one of Sydney's biggest clinics, will install an interactive electronic health system within about 12 months, allowing women to manage their own medical records, log test results and communicate with doctors and fellow patients.
The move follows a successful trial of 17 patients who used a more basic version of the system for eight weeks - the usual length of time it takes to complete one IVF cycle.
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Coalition to publish waiting lists
DAVID ROOD
June 17, 2010
STATE hospitals will be forced to publish regularly the number of outpatients waiting to be seen - if the Coalition wins November's state election.
The opposition has promised to publish the outpatient data - which currently is not publicly available - every three months, including the waiting time from a doctor's referral to a patient being treated.
In an attempt to exploit anger at hospital waiting lists, the $7 million election policy will involve 10 nurses employed to help co-ordinate the outpatient appointments, reviving the Coalition's 2006 state poll policy.
Announcing the list pledge yesterday, opposition health spokesman David Davis estimated tens of thousands of people were on outpatient lists that had been shrouded in secrecy under the state government.
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Feds push e-Health to indigenous communities
By Liz Tay
Jun 15, 2010 2:42 PM
Networking and internet access to improve.
The Federal Government has pledged $4.3m to enhance networking, internet access, systems and equipment of four Aboriginal Health organisations.
Announced last week by Indigenous Health Minister Warren Snowdon, the funding is expected to further web-based reporting and complement the Government's $466.7m e-Health investment.
The Nganampa Health Council in South Australia has received $2m to trial web-based reporting and upgrade aspects of its IT systems.
Northern Territory-based Aboriginal Medical Services Association (AMSANT) has received $1.6m to develop a shared IT arrangement with additional medical services, and cooperate with the Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health on the implementation of e-Health in NT.
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Qld govt imports payroll system experts
By Josh Taylor, ZDNet.com.au on June 18th, 2010
The Queensland Department of Public Works has brought in two Infor experts from Canada to help resolve data entry issues with the Queensland Health payroll system.
As originally reported in the Courier-Mail, the two experts have been contracted from the Canadian enterprise software company Infor.
A spokesperson for the Department of Public Works told ZDNet Australia that the experts would be part of the "CorpTech WorkBrain Applications" team working on the Queensland Health payroll system.
"They are analysing WorkBrain issues raised by Queensland Health including union requests for changes, such as simplifying the roster publishing process from a data entry perspective," the spokesperson said in a statement.
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Canadian payroll experts fly in to sort out Queensland Health system problems
- Janelle Miles
- From: The Courier-Mail
- June 18, 2010
TAXPAYERS will fork out almost $350,000 for two international computer software experts to work on the bungled Queensland Health payroll system.
The Bligh Government has contracted the pair from Canadian-based software company Infor for 14 weeks each.
One started work this week, the other is due on June 28.
Both are experts in Workbrain, the rostering component of the Queensland Health system, which also utilises SAP payroll software.
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iSoft shuffles board as shares continue to fall
Market update fails to cheer markets
Posted in Enterprise, 16th June 2010 10:40 GMT
iSoft shares continued to fall yesterday despite a supposedly reassuring update from the health provider.
The company, at the centre of the UK's National Programme for IT, said some had misunderstood its earlier update: an update which it has already had to clarify [1] when it was interpreted as criticism of the government and of key partner CSC.
The statement to the Australian Stock Exchange said the relationship with CSC remains strong and the successful "go-live" of the Lorenzo project in Morecambe Bay was a significant achievement.
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A lot of what if in website's valuation
DAVID SYMONS
June 16, 2010
SICK FEELING
Despite topping the list of top-performing stocks yesterday, the healthcare software developer iSoft is just starting on the long road back after a massive profit downgrade early this month took its toll on management credibility.
After a 20.4 per cent rally, shares are still down close to 50 per cent for the month, falling sharply in response to EBITDA guidance for the six months to June being reduced to just $10 million to $25 million, down from earlier estimates of $70 million to $85 million. It seems that delayed milestone payments on a big national health contract in Britain are to blame.
The bad news triggered capitulation from some shareholders, with long-term iSoft supporters Maple-Brown Abbott dipping below the 5 per cent substantial shareholder threshold last week. The profit update also left analysts dumbfounded, struggling to reconcile how hiccups in a contract iSoft says is responsible for just 15 to 20 per cent of the company's $450 million annual revenue could cause such a sharp reduction in profitability.
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iSoft struggling with market revelations
By Renai LeMay, Delimiter.com.au on June 16th, 2010
The share price of Australian e-health software group iSoft today continued to sink further as investors absorbed bad news about the company's operations in the UK.
The company's share price had hit a 52-week high of 93¢ late last year, but today at the time of print it had sunk another 5 per cent from yesterday's price to 28¢ — slightly above the 52-week low of 24¢ reached over the past couple of weeks.
The killer blow for iSoft was its announcement several weeks ago of issues in its UK operation acquired years ago. iSoft was previously known as IBA Health, but fought a battle to acquire its new namesake, which holds a titanic contract in partnership with IT services group CSC to implement a large chunk of the UK's new e-health network for its National Health Service (NHS).
"Delays in the roll-out (which were beyond the control of iSoft), uncertainty associated with the change in UK government and a weak European economic environment have created the need to clarify iSoft's earnings for the current fiscal year," the company said on 2 June — triggering the stock market rout.
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Further iSoft jobs at risk
15 Jun 2010
Health software firm iSoft has announced that it will push through a “significant reduction in costs”, likely to result in further job losses at the company.
The company will also shake up the executive team with Steve Garrington stepping down from the board and Gary Cohen ceasing to be executive chairman. Cohen will “fully focus on his role of chief executive officer”.
Dr Jim Fox, who was appointed as iSoft’s deputy chairman on 28 May, has resigned from the board, after just 18 days.
The moves come after a 50% fall in iSoft’s share price over the past two weeks, following a 2 June warning that earnings would be a long way short of previous forecasts. The revision was attributed to delays in installing Lorenzo software at Morecambe Bay and not signing a deal with CSC to sell iSoft products in the South of England.
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Ailing iSoft puts more jobs at risk while it seeks easy payments deal from banks
• iSoft shakes up executive team and lays off two directors
• Software firm expects lower earnings for 2011
• Software firm expects lower earnings for 2011
The troubled NHS software supplier, iSoft, has been forced to go cap in hand to its banks for more favourable borrowing terms and to draw up urgent plans to cut jobs after the company delivered a string of negative trading updates in recent weeks.
The firm also saw a boardroom shake-up with Robert Moran, managing director at Oceania Capital, iSoft's largest shareholder, taking over as chairman from Gary Cohen, who continues as chief executive. Two other directors have resigned.
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/shake-up-for-isoft-group-board/story-e6frg8zx-1225880115973
Shake-up for iSoft Group board
- Karen Dearne
- From: The Australian
- June 16, 2010
A SHAKE-UP on the iSoft Group board has led to longstanding executive chairman Gary Cohen stepping down and recently appointed deputy chairman James Fox resigning.
Mr Cohen will focus on his other role as chief executive of Australia's largest listed health IT firm, after weeks of plummeting share prices.
Robert Moran, managing director of iSoft's largest shareholder, Oceania Capital Partners, has been appointed non-executive chairman.
Dr Fox joined the board on May 28.
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GPs call for individual health identifier
15 June 2010 - 4:00pm
General practice representative groups have joined forces this week to push for the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 to be passed.
Members of United General Practice Australia (UGPA) – the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, the Australian General Practice Network, The Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and General Practice Registrars Australia – want to see health identifiers become a routine part of medical practice.
UGPA believes eHealth is long overdue in Australia and a commitment is needed from Government to make eHealth a reality in Australia.
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Struggling to make sense of health/aged care reform? Help is here…
June 17, 2010 – 7:16 pm
Amongst the deluge of reports on health reform that are released almost daily, here is one that is well worth a read. The Parliamentary Library has produced its annual Budget Review, and it gives a very useful analysis of health and aged care reforms and federal budget announcements.
My short and rather brutal summary is that a lot of money is being spent on health reform for most uncertain outcomes, while so-called reforms in medicines and pharmacy policy look to have benefited the pharmaceutical and pharmacy industries more than the public purse or public policy. Meanwhile, the government has wimped out on significant health workforce reform, while taking only baby steps towards achieving the promise of e-health.
Here are some snippets from the paper (and thanks to Australian Policy Online for the pointer to this report).
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Swag of tech spending in Tassie budget
By Luke Hopewell, ZDNet.com.au on June 18th, 2010
Tasmanian Premier David Bartlett used last night's state budget to announce an $8.87 million centralised IT plan for all state government agencies. The budget also included e-health projects, a smart grid trial, new police equipment and extra National Broadband Network spending.
The Tasmanian Government's IT is currently handled separately by each individual department, but under Bartlett's new transformation plan, a division of the Department of Premier and Cabinet will provide a "single, centralised service".
"That will give Tasmanians faster, more secure access to government systems and resources," Bartlett said.
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The Answer to Australia's eHealth Riddle Remains Elusive
By Steve Hodgkinson
Insight
An eHealth strategy riddle
A man is rowing a boat on Reform Lake, its deep waters comprised of all the pages of documents written on Australian healthcare reform and the tears of frustration of their many authors. His boat carries a state government's health system.
However, he notes with alarm that it is about to be sunk by sharp rocks looming just below the fragile hull. He looks across and sees other boats on the lake in a similar plight.
A wizard on the shore is shouting at all the boats to throw their health systems into the lake to raise the water level and save them from the rocks. The wizard says that if all the boats do this at once it will invoke powerful magic to dry the lake's tears and bring the reform dreams to life. The man is torn between hoping that his boat will skim over the rocks unscathed and doing as the wizard suggests. What should the man do?
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The possibilities for an integrated approach to e-health
By Melissa Martin
Insight
If there is one area where the benefits of ICT reach their maximum potential in society, it would certainly be e-health - an area of exciting innovation and promise!
However, it has also been persistently under-funded. But with healthcare reform (and NBN) at the forefront of the national agenda, the possibilities for an integrated approach to e-health makes the area rife with challenge and opportunity for vendors in 2010. IDC offers the following guidance on the ehealth sector in Australia:
- IDC estimated that ICT spending in the healthcare industry in 2010 to be A$2.26 billion, a slight growth of the 2009 figure of A$2.20 billion. Of the four sub-segments (hardware, services, software and telecommunications), hardware spending was the highest at 41.3% (A$937 million), along with upgrades of infrastructure, and further investments into personal computing equipment, including laptops and mobile tablet PCs.
- A$721 million (31.8%) was spent on telecommunications, A$509 million (22.4%) on services and a further A$102 million (4.5%) spent on software. Vendors benefited from the various state and hospital initiatives for deployment of clinical information systems and pilots of electronic health records, driving demand for application development and integration services.
- IDC believes that the investment priorities of the industry will be aligned with continuous service improvement and patient customer attraction. The top investment priorities in 2010 will be: Business Intelligence for next generation hospital operations; eHealth Records Standards and Interoperability (integration and compliance with standards); and Collaboration tools for improved communications across service providers. Over the next three years, IDC expects ICT spending to reach A$2.58 billion by 2013.
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Toxic net filters 'shelved until after election'
ASHER MOSES
June 18, 2010 - 10:58AM
The internet censorship policy has joined the government's list of "politically toxic subjects" and will almost certainly be shelved until after the federal election, Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam says.
The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd - already facing a voter backlash over several perceived policy failures - is expected to call the election before the end of the year and the feeling of many in Canberra is that next week will be the last sitting week of parliament.
Parliament is not due to sit again until August 24, leaving little time to introduce the legislation and have it debated and passed in time for the election.
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Fewer Australians subscribing to broadband
ARI SHARP COMMUNICATIONS CORRESPONDENT
June 14, 2010
AUSTRALIA is one of only two developed countries where the take-up of broadband internet connections declined last year, new figures show.
Figures for 31 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development show the number of broadband subscribers per 100 of the population slipped 0.55 last year in Australia. Finland recorded an even bigger slide.
In contrast, broadband take-up grew 1.39 per 100 of the population in the US, 1.69 in South Korea and 2.96 in Germany, leaving the OECD average at 1.47
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Google search engine 'not safe': expert
- Karen Dearne
- From: The Australian
- June 15, 2010
AUSTRALIANS should consider switching search engines because Google is no longer a safe option, according to US anti-surveillance technology activist Katherine Albrecht.
Dr Albrecht was in Sydney to launch Startpage Australia, a local version of the popular privacy-protective Startpage (formerly Ixquick), that has been operating out of the Netherlands for more than a decade.
Startpage allows users to anonymously search the internet across nine global and local engines including Yahoo, Bing, Anzwers and Bigroo.
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New legislation needed to tackle cybercrime
- Karen Dearne
- From: The Australian
- June 15, 2010
THE Rudd government will consult with telcos and ISPs on new legislation required before Australia can sign up for the global convention on cybercrime.
The Council of Europe treaty, which details a standard international framework for handling crimes committed online, has been adopted by more than 45 countries.
It addresses offences against computer systems, including illegal access, interception and interference with data; forgery and fraud; content-related crimes such as child pornography; and copyright and intellectual property infringements. Attorney-General Robert McClelland last week signalled the government was ready to accede to the convention. The A-G Department's national security resiliency division chief, Mike Rothery, said new laws giving police real-time access to network traffic were under consideration.
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Enjoy!
David.
