You May Want To Look Through This Article on IT Governance - Some Useful Points.

Regular readers will know that I bang on endlessly about governance and its importance in successful project delivery.

It is good to hand the baton to someone else for a moment!

When IT governance goes wrong

Stories from the trenches of government IT staff

• James Hutchinson (Computerworld)
• 21 September, 2010 19:21

Inefficient IT projects are the bugbear of every IT manager.

Speaking the World Computer Congress 2010 in Brisbane, manager of Griffith University’s internal audit office, Cathy Blunt , provided an interesting insight into the main contributing factors to failed or inefficient IT products in government agencies. The public university has undergone internal changes to prevent similar failures, although Blunt wasn’t shy of self-criticism in her review of what sends government IT projects over the edge. Here are some of her thoughts.

Strategic Alignment

“The one that’s probably got the most press coverage over the last few months has been the Queensland Health payroll system. There’s a Queensland auditor’s report about that — it’s well worth a read. It will keep you awake at night for a little while if nothing else.

“In terms of strategic alignment there are a couple of things that the Queensland Audit Office included in their report: There were unclear roles and responsibilities, particularly those in Queensland Health and the people within CorpTech responsible for actually delivering the system, as well as IBM, the service delivery partner with CorpTech. The responsibility between those and who was responsible for the project outcomes was very unclear.

“There was also a lack of strategic outcomes as to what it was they were trying to deliver. Queensland Audit Office quite roundly criticised Queensland Health for not reviewing the awards for their staff before they tried to implement the system to try and reduce the number of awards that were captured in the payroll system they were delivering.

“The [Queensland] Department of Employment and Training was also hit with the same Queensland Audit Office report — they didn’t just want to pick on Queensland Health — and they were criticised for their IT Governance framework not being documented.

“Just to show that auditors don’t always get it right, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) was reviewed by KPMG and was criticised for needing better alignment needed between its key risks and IT strategic plan.”

…..

Blunt also shared some of the issues she has found after spending four years internally auditing projects at Griffith University:

• Lack of formal IT risk assessment frameworks and registers
• Project methodology not always followed
• Project benefits realisation not identified and monitored
• IT Governance committees not working effectively
• Business agenda does not always meet best practices or expectations
• IT policies and procedures no implemented consistently

Read the middle of the article here:

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/361617/when_it_governance_goes_wrong_/?eid=-6787

Reading this closely it seems to me a key lesson is that an independent audit of IT projects every few years - while being annoying for those involved - can be invaluable in keeping focus on where the team is heading and what it is meant to be delivering.

I am sure we can all think of an organisation or two where this approach may very well help and head of the odd delay and disaster.

David.

Will We Have a Report Like This for the HI Service in A Few Years’ Time?

The following reports appeared yesterday.

Ombudsman slams ATO over tax file errors

By Ry Crozier on Sep 21, 2010 2:21 PM

Flawed data matching put Australians at risk of identity theft.

The Australian Taxation Office was criticised by the Commonwealth Ombudsman for its handling of cases where a person's tax identity was compromised by data matching or administrative errors.

The Ombudsman said today that actions taken by the ATO in eight cases involving tax file number compromise were "unreasonable" with cases lasting months to years.

"Our investigations suggest a systemic failure by the ATO to properly recognise and respond to the issues faced by taxpayers who, through no fault of their own, have their [tax file numbers] compromised or incorrectly linked - by the ATO - to another person's," the Ombudsman said in a new report [pdf].

"[Tax file number] integrity and ATO data and systems quality are areas of high importance to the tax system."

The ATO conceded that the experiences of "some taxpayers [had] been less than satisfactory" but said the eight cases outlined by the Ombudsman were isolated and not typical of taxpayer experiences.

The tax agency agreed to the five recommendations made by the report and cited last year's establishment of the Client Identity Support Centre as a step to create a "single capability for the management and resolution of identity crime" and tax file number compromises.

Some of the cases involved identity fraud, where a person's tax number was compromised by an unknown third party that used it to lodge tax returns.

Others were caused by data-matching errors where the ATO incorrectly "culled" a person's tax file number in the mistaken belief they were issued two.

But the numbers were for different people with the same name and, in one case, also with the same date of birth.

It took seven months to resolve the latter case, in part because the ATO sent an "objection" letter from the taxpayer whose number was canned to a "decommissioned email address", causing a four-month delay.

More here:

http://www.itnews.com.au/News/232827,ombudsman-slams-ato-over-tax-file-errors.aspx

The issue is also covered here:

Ombudsman slams 'systematic failure' of tax office

September 21, 2010 - 4:56PM

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has slammed the taxation office for failing to properly handle complaints about misused tax file numbers.

A report released on Tuesday detailed eight cases where the numbers were compromised or linked to the wrong person.

In one case, a welfare recipient was hit with a $7000 Centrelink bill and a $2250 tax penalty after another taxpayer made an error with an online tax return.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has slammed the taxation office for failing to properly handle complaints about misused tax file numbers.

A report released on Tuesday detailed eight cases where the numbers were compromised or linked to the wrong person.

In one case, a welfare recipient was hit with a $7000 Centrelink bill and a $2250 tax penalty after another taxpayer made an error with an online tax return.

In another case, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) wrongly assumed a pensioner from a non-English speaking background had two tax file numbers, which meant income was incorrectly attributed to her.

Both cases took two years to resolve.

More here:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/ombudsman-slams-systematic-failure-of--tax-office-20100921-15l2g.html

and the ABC also has a take:

Tax file number problems far from resolved

Posted Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:10pm AEST

The Commonwealth Ombudsman has criticised the Australian Tax Office for not responding adequately to complaints about compromised tax file numbers.

The Ombudsman, Allan Asher, says that when individual tax file numbers are compromised it can lead to delayed tax refunds and payments and debts being incorrectly attributed.

He says the Tax Office's actions to date do not fully address his concerns.

"The Tax Office themselves make it absolutely clear that the sanctity of tax file numbers is so important and it's the unique identifier for taxpayers and where they themselves don't get on to these problems quickly and resolve them, it can cause devastation to individuals," he said.

More here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/21/3018072.htm

The Executive Summary is pretty damming:

Executive Summary.

Complaints investigated by the Ombudsman identified concerns with the Australian Taxation Office’s (ATO) response when Tax File Numbers (TFNs) are compromised or TFN records are incorrectly linked. Three key areas of concern are the ATO’s:

· failure to respond appropriately to problems arising from compromised TFNs

· inadequate policy oversight and recognition of the systemic issues demonstrated by these complaints

· inadequate communication with taxpayers.

TFN integrity and ATO data and systems quality are areas of high importance to the tax system. Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) reviews and a Parliamentary inquiry into ATO management of TFNs in the past decade highlighted the need to improve the integrity of the TFN system,1 and resulted in significant government funding being given to the ATO to achieve this.2

We consider that action taken by the ATO in eight cases involving TFN compromise was unreasonable. Our investigations suggest a systemic failure by the ATO to properly recognise and respond to the issues faced by taxpayers who, through no fault of their own, have their TFNs compromised or are incorrectly linked, by the ATO, to another person’s TFN.

In the cases we investigated, the taxpayers with compromised TFNs had not been able to resolve their problems with the ATO, despite having made a number of attempts to do so. Responses to these investigations suggest that there is a need for the ATO to improve its systems and processes for resolving more complex TFN compromise cases.

----- End Extract

What can happen when issues arise are pretty clear: (Page 4)

1.12 Complainants experienced a range of consequences including:

· ATO delays in processing their tax returns or bonus payments

· having debts wrongly attributed to them

· problems with other agencies, such as Centrelink, that exchange information linked through TFNs with the ATO

· loss of faith in the integrity of the tax system and security of TFNs

· lack of resolution with scope for problem to recur or cause delays and difficulties for future lodgement

· loss of tax revenue (but in small amounts so that ATO investigation resources are not used to investigate or to recover funds)

· difficulty and delay in being provided with an accurate account record

· possible breach of privacy and confidentiality by the ATO

· the need to go through objections and complaints.

----- End Extract.

That the ATO agreed to all the recommendations for improvement says they recognised the problem.

Given the role of the Tax File Number in record linkage and identity theft the parallels with the Health Identifier Service are pretty stark. There is a clear warning here for Medicare Australia to make sure its procedures are really up to scratch or you can be sure the Ombudsman will be on their case a few years out!

David.

The NASH Project Is Really VERY Big Indeed. Already We Are Seeing Confused Messages.

There have been a couple of articles appear on the NASH Tender and related matters today.

First we have:

Health minister Nicola Roxon says e-health safeguards are in place

• Karen Dearne
• From: The Australian
• September 21, 2010 12:00AM

HEALTH Minister Nicola Roxon has rejected suggestions key patient protections are not yet in place.

The Healthcare Identifiers service went live in July after the rushed passage of new laws in parliament in June.

Doubts emerged about the readiness of the underpinning authentication, secure messaging and audit capabilities when an Audit Office report found GPs had been paid $83 million in the past year to use a messaging standard that did not exist.

GPs also had to obtain digital certificates from Medicare, although these could not be used for authentication purposes.

The auditor found the National E-Health Transition Authority had not finalised the messaging standard until March this year, and Medicare's certificates were designed for electronic claiming only.

Last week NEHTA issued a tender for the National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) -- intended to support the launch of the identifiers service -- admitting the design and build would be done by the private sector.

While Ms Roxon, NEHTA, Health and Medicare officials all pointed to NASH as evidence of stronger security for patient information during consultations on the HI framework, it is unclear whether these protections are in place.

A spokeswoman for Ms Roxon said it was incorrect to suggest the key authentication, secure messaging and audit-trail functions did not exist.

"All necessary capabilities were in place to support the HI service from the outset," she said.

"While originally designed for (business) communication with Medicare, its PKI (public key infrastructure) is appropriate to encrypt messages and provide the required level of security.

"There are already 17,000 Medicare certificates in use, and this supports the tough penalties in the legislation (for misuse of HI information)."

More here:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/health-minister-nicola-roxon-says-e-health-safeguards-are-in-place/story-e6frgakx-1225926995520

and second we have:

Smartcard tender issued for National Authentication Service for Health

• Karen Dearne
• From: The Australian
• September 21, 2010 12:00AM

A SMARTCARD and a public key infrastructure tender has been issued for the National Authentication Service for Health.

And NEHTA is "moving on" from problems and delays over the project.

Almost three years after Deloitte recommended the NASH be put to commercial tender, the National E-Health Transition Authority admitted the project was beyond them and preferred partner, Medicare.

NEHTA head of infrastructure services Stephen Johnson said NASH would underpin authentication of users beyond the Healthcare Identifiers service now being established.

More here:

With all this appearing I thought it would be interesting to look at the scope of the actual tender.

Here is the very basic bits of the requirements (Page 14/15 of tender):

3 Statement of Requirements

It is proposed that the NASH project will include three main phases which are design, build, and operate. NEHTA is seeking Tenders which will address each of these phases and provide NEHTA with a fit-for-purpose solution(s).

NEHTA’s conceptual architecture (as depicted in Figure 4 in Section 6.3) proposes a number of Capabilities for the NASH.

NEHTA’s delivery priorities are designing, building and operating the Credential Management Services followed by Token Management Services (including Smartcard build and integration).

It is intended that the end-to-end NASH capabilities will be fully implemented by 30 June 2012.

3.1 Capabilities

These Capabilities are:

The Services Catalogue

The NASH Services Catalogue will publish all Services available in the NASH.

Management and Workflow

The Management and Workflow will manage and co-ordinate all requests from the different services, devices and systems for the provision and management of credentials and tokens.

Credential Management Services

The Credential Management Services will generate and manage NASH credentials including credential types, credential validation and lookup interfaces, credential request and management interfaces, subscribing entity access standards, operating systems, and applications.

Token Management Services

The Token Management Services will be responsible for the personalisation and branding of NASH tokens and support token lifecycle operations including the management of token types, token request and management interfaces, token holder access standards, operating systems and applications.

Identity Management Services

The Identity Management Services will manage the authentication of every participant within the NASH Communities of Interest who accesses the NASH Services.

Fulfilment Services

The Fulfilment Services will be responsible for the despatch and delivery of NASH credentials, tokens and token readers.

Reporting and Audit Services

The Reporting and Audit Services will provide internal and external billing and management reporting, compliance and audit capabilities for the NASH Services; and

Service Desk

The Service Desk will provide a centralised helpdesk and support functions for participants within the NASH Communities of Interest.

Tenderers are invited to submit Tenders for provision to NEHTA of one or more of the phases and/or Capabilities:

1. Design – is the activity that defines the components that will be built and implemented to meet the requirements of the NASH;

2. Build – is the activity that creates and constructs the authentication services that will be operated; and

3. Operate – is the activity that includes the day-to-day operation and management of the NASH including the supply of secure tokens and supporting infrastructure.

The full list of detailed functional, technical and non-functional requirements for these phases and Capabilities is included in Sections 6 and 7 of this document.

---- End Extract.

Also important is this table:

Appendix D: Demand Forecast

The following tables provide an estimate of the number of Subordinate Certification Authorities, Subscribing Entities, Credentials, and Secure Tokens that will be required over the first five years of NASH operations.

Table 6 is based on the number of new entities that will join NASH each year and the following assumptions:

1. Each subscribing entity will be issued with a single secure token that contains two credentials. It will be possible for subscribing entities to be issued with credentials only but this use case has not been specifically included as it seen as a minor use case so far as creating demand for credentials is concerned;

2. Each year 10% of the tokens, and credentials, in circulation from the previous years will need to be replaced due to loss, theft, or malfunction;

3. Tokens are expected to have a lifetime in excess of five years; and

4. Credentials will have a lifetime of five years.

Table 7 provides the cumulative totals for each year of operation. This includes an estimate of the number of times a day a relying party may wish to obtain the public key certificate of and/or validate the status of a credential. Tenderers should prepare cost estimates based on the following but keep in mind that actual demand may differ significantly from the estimates provided.

----- End Extract

The tables (which are a bit hard to reproduce on the blog) show the following over a 5 year period - which presumably begins once the system is operational from ‘end to end’ in June 2012 - runs over 5 years and shows:

Subscribing Entities rising from 5,000 to 250,000

Credentials Managed rising from 10,000 to 500,000

Subordinate Certification Authorities rising to 5 from 0.

Transactions rising from 50,000 per day to 5,005,000 per day.

If you take a moment to read the capabilities at 3.1 you will see this is really a ‘gigantic’ national project which will be ramped up over 5 years and which will presumably then grow to being able to provide credentials and authentication for pretty much all professional health sector staff.

Just how much nonsense was provided to the Australian by Ms Roxon’s spokeswoman is obvious when you think to ask the question that ‘if Medicare PKI is good enough, just why is such a huge project necessary?’

The answer is obvious. What is in place for the HI Service is only good enough while essentially no-one is using it! I do recognise NASH will assist other areas but we are repeatedly told the HI Service is foundational.

I look forward to knowing just what NEHTA has budgeted for delivery and maintenance and just where these funds are coming from! I anticipate a little ‘sticker shock’ when the tenders are delivered.

One area of special interest, it is by no means clear how this service it to be integrated into the various applications that might want to use the credentials.

Additionally the governance proposed by NEHTA does not seem to recognise this is just a component of a much larger set of e-Health services which need overall, inclusive governance. general.

I have a very bad feeling about this whole endeavour - as it seems rather grandiose and overarching - again without a clear public cost benefit and business case being available so some rational assessment of just where we are heading and what we are letting ourselves in for.

I hope a full spectrum of overseas approaches to ‘skinning this cat’ have been explored before this tender was let out the door - or that the prospective tenders will steer things in minimally risky directions.

We shall all see I guess!

David.

The Sydney Morning Herald Talks a Lot about E-Health for a Monday!

The venerable SMH seems to have taken both a shine and some caution to E-Health today.

First we have this:

Please take a number

September 20, 2010

An e-revolution is about to hit the health system. Doctors back it, but what will it mean for privacy? Karen Kissane reports.

Cath Ringwood has seen it all. As a former nurse and social worker, she has witnessed time and again delays, muddles and even dangers caused by a medical world in which communication relies on scraps of paper that too often are lost, or on patients' own foggy understanding of their history.

''The slippage is just so bad,'' she says. ''People aren't good historians. They don't realise the significance of some things - 'Oh, the doctor says I have a bit of fluid on my leg …' They forget important things, or they might not be able to tell you because of language problems, cognition problems, mental health or substance abuse.

''They might have a medical history at one hospital and something else going on at another hospital. You might be seeing someone for 12 months and suddenly realise they have a whole history of cardiac at St V's.'' Even when a comprehensive file is available, if it relates to a long-standing, complex condition it might be as thick as a brick. A new specialist in a large hospital will cast an impatient glance at it and turn to the patient for a verbal summary instead. Then there are the tests that have to be repeated because results have gone missing; pathology results mixed up because of a problem with labelling; and delays in passing information between specialists and GPs, who communicate via courtesy letters delivered by snail-mail.

Ringwood has experienced some of these frustrations on a personal level. She has been battling chronic lymphocytic leukaemia for several years. When a specialist told her the devastating news that she also had breast cancer, Ringwood waited four days to go to her GP for an urgent referral to a surgeon. That turned out not to be long enough. She had to tell the GP the news herself because the letter from the specialist had not arrived. ''It meant we had to start off from scratch,'' she says.

So Ringwood is pleased to hear the federal government will introduce shared electronic health records. If the roll-out goes to plan, by July 1, 2012, any patient will be able to ask their doctor to create one. They will be uploaded on the web to be accessed - with patient permission - by any of the nation's 700,000 registered medical and allied professionals. The first step is complete: a 16-digit number called a ''health identifier'' has been assigned to every Australian known to Medicare. It can be used in all health encounters from cradle to grave.

This number is one of the reasons privacy advocates do not share Ringwood's delight. They fear a stalking horse for another run at a national identity card. They also fear e-health records will mean Big Brother peeking through the keyhole of a very private place: the consulting room.

The e-records are a central plank of a massive IT revolution in the nation's health system. They are to be followed by a secure electronic messaging system - rather like encrypted emails - as well as shared e-systems for referrals, hospital discharges, pathology results and prescriptions. The idea is that computers in all the parts of our vast web of health services will finally be able to talk to each other.

Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, a former president of the Australian Medical Association, is lead clinician for the National E-Health Transition Authority and a true believer in what the technology will deliver for patients and doctors. He says ''the rubber hit the road'' for the project when federal Parliament - in the final hours of the last sitting before it rose for the election - passed a bill providing $466.7 million over two years to develop electronic health records.

The search for better care is not the only reason Western governments are backing e-health; they hope it will help contain ballooning costs. Eighty per cent of the health ''burden'' in Australia is now made up of chronic illness, which requires long-running care; the population is ageing; and shortages of health workers are expected to drive up their wages.

It has been estimated that e-health could save $8.7 billion over the first 10 years alone - not as instant cash savings but by flattening ''the exponential trajectory'' of demand and cost projections, according to a 2008 report by Booz & Company. Two-thirds of the expected savings would come from reduced errors and better medical practices. If health costs went unchecked, Booz argued, the system would struggle, patient safety would be compromised and universal healthcare might have to be rationed.

Vastly more here:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/please-take-a-number-20100919-15hyk.html

An interesting little summary is found at the end.

HOW IT WORKS

THE AIMS

- Everyone will get a 16-digit individual health identifier.

- 700,000 professionals will get a healthcare provider's identifier.

- Up to 100,000 organisations such as hospitals get a group identifier.

- The patient and a care provider talk over what details should go into a shared electronic health summary.

- The e-health record is uploaded on to a secure website where it can be viewed and updated by authorised care providers.

THE UNKNOWNS

- What health details are to be standard on the e-record.

- Who will store and manage records.

- How/whether patient consent will be enforced and recorded for each entry/access.

- How/whether patients will be notified of any privacy breaches.

Then we have this:

Britain ponders its sickly $20 billion e-health experience

Karen Kissane

September 20, 2010

Britain's push for e-health records won the ''most appalling project'' prize in the annual Big Brother awards of Privacy International in 2004. That, it turns out, was only the beginning of the project's troubles.

It is eight years and £12 billion ($19.9 billion) since Britain set out to establish a shared e-health record for 50 million citizens as a central plank of its overhaul of health and computers, in what was dubbed the world's largest civilian IT project. Now the rollout of e-health records is over time and over budget, dogged by savage criticism and languishing from lack of use.

Earlier this year, doctors called for a boycott of the system after it was found one in 10 records uploaded contained out-of-date information, including errors about patients' medication and drug allergies. This threatened patient safety, they said.

Earlier controversies erupted over patient consent. Britain has an opt-out system; patients must apply to be exempted from having a shared e-record and, if they don't, their consent is ''implied'' and the record uploaded. But research showed many people had not received notification of the system and did not know it existed. Some who tried to opt out were told they must first have a face-to-face session with an ''adviser'', and others were told they could no longer receive health care if they did not have an e-record.

More here:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/britain-ponders-its-sickly-20-billion-ehealth-experience-20100919-15hwt.html

Both the articles are worth a browse to see what is being said in the mainstream media as well to see how the issues in the UK are being reported down under.

As I have said often these is certainly a need to learn carefully from experiences all over the world, and not assume we can invent it all here!

David.

Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 19 September, 2010.

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 subscription payment.

General Comment:

The main issue this week has been the failure of governance in the e-Health domain in Australia that has led to the sort of thing that is editorialised about here:

Where did the common-sense button go?

By Suzanne Tindal, ZDNet.com.au on September 16th, 2010

News that doctors have been paid an incentive for implementing e-health systems that are not available has floored me.

I can't blame the doctors for claiming offered money for taking part in a program. However, given that the government knew that the systems involved in parts of the program were not going to be available on time, why didn't anyone stop the flow of compensation?

Apparently the risk that systems might be delayed was identified early, but no one did anything to stop the incentive program. Instead everything trundled along as normal, ending in systems not being ready.

No one thought to say "In that case, we should probably delay payments for that part of the incentive". (I'm not sure of the legal ins and outs of being able to do so, but surely someone must have written a contingency into whatever doctors had to sign to be a part of the program, especially since $83 million was budgeted for the e-health portion of the incentive program per year.)

More here:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/where-did-the-common-sense-button-go-339306065.htm

Of course we also had the appalling revelation that after having messed about for almost three years in implementing NASH finally admitted it was all too hard!

Details here:

http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2010/09/some-one-needs-to-be-held-accountable.html

Dramatic improvement is needed here - to say the least.

-----

http://www.theage.com.au/national/health-of-a-nation-to-go-by-the-numbers-20100917-15gdp.html

Health of a nation to go by the numbers

Karen Kissane

September 18, 2010

MORE than 22 million Australians now have new government-issued identity numbers as part of a $466 million plan to create individual electronic health records that can be shared online - but most of them don't know it yet.

Privacy advocates have criticised the automatic mass assignment of numbers and the fact that recipients have not been notified that they exist.

The 16-digit number has been created by Medicare and can be accessed via Medicare cards. Called an ''individual health identifier'', it is the first step in a national plan to move to ''e-health'', computerising health records, prescriptions and referrals, and creating an encrypted mail system for doctors and hospitals. It has been estimated e-health could save $8.7 billion over 10 years by improving medical practices.

From July 2012, patients will be able to ask their doctors to use the identifier to create a shared ''e-record'', containing a summary of an individual's health details and personal information.

-----

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/consumer-support-is-the-key-to-getting-e-health-off-the-ground/story-e6frgakx-1225921410049

Consumer support is the key to getting e-health off the ground

• Karen Dearne
• From: The Australian
• September 14, 2010 12:00AM

HEALTH Minister Nicola Roxon will need to win over consumers as she moves on her e-health agenda.

She has $467 million on the table for personal records and a further $392m to get GPs and specialists consulting with patients over the internet.

The National E-Health Transition Authority's head of strategy and e-health architecture, Andrew Howard, last week conceded a failure to address community concerns over the past two years. "We've had a big focus to engage with medical professionals, and our clinical leads program has been outstanding," he told Chik Service's Health-e-Nation conference in Sydney..

"But we still lack engagement with consumers.

"We need to find out what people really want, and how we can involve them in the (development) process."

-----

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/emergency-alert-to-be-improved-20100914-159zg.html

Emergency alert to be improved

September 14, 2010 - 10:39AM

AAP

The federal government will improve the national emergency warning system so it can alert people to disaster threats based on the location of their mobile phone.

The Emergency Alert system already sends warnings by recorded voice and text message to landlines and mobile phones based on an owner's billing address.

In response to last year's interim report of the Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission, Labor agreed a national warning system that delivered alerts according to where a person's mobile phone was actually located was also needed.

-----

http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=523314

Roxon meets with GP leaders on second term

by Michael Woodhead

In one of her first actions as health minister in the new Gillard government, Nicola Roxon today met with peak general practice groups to discuss issues such as e-health.

According to the umbrella group United General Practice Australia, there was strong shared support for accelerated implementation of e-health initiatives such as the GP patient summary as the basis for the proposed electronic patient health record.

There was support also for electronic initiatives to improve access to pathology, diagnostic imaging, discharge summaries, and electronic prescriptions.
-----

http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/medicare-rebate-call-for-sick-web-gamers/story-e6frfku0-1225920242991

Medicare rebate call for sick web gamers

• By Bruce McDougall
• From: The Daily Telegraph
• September 13, 2010 5:48AM

EXPERTS want computer addicts to be allowed to claim their treatment on Medicare.

Psychiatrists and psychologists receiving calls for help from distressed families believe addiction to the internet and computer games will soon be listed as a mental disorder.

School children and young adults are becoming so dangerously hooked on computer games that they are being offered live-in treatment at psychiatric facilities.

Psychologist Andrew Campbell from the University of Sydney and psychiatrist Philip Tam of Concord's Rivendell Adolescent Unit have told The Daily Telegraph computer addiction should be classified as a disorder.

-----

http://www.smh.com.au/business/ipad-invasion-proves-bittersweet-20100918-15h7a.html

iPad invasion proves bitter-sweet

Stephen Cauchi

September 19, 2010

THEY call it a tablet, but four months after the Australian release of Apple's iPad revolutionary touch-screen computer, the device's popularity is proving a bitter pill for laptop sellers.

While it has been swiftly embraced by businesses as diverse as airlines and hospitals, the iPad is opening up new markets while cannibalising the cheaper end of the established computer market.

Qantas subsidiary Jetstar is the latest organisation to be considering a bulk order.

Students, lawyers, sales reps and sporting clubs have embraced the device and 500 doctors in Victorian hospitals will be testing it next year.

-----

http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/6244/morecambe_bay_creates_stabilisation_plan

Morecambe Bay creates stabilisation plan

16 Sep 2010

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust has launched a stabilisation plan to bring major and persistent problems with its electronic patient record system, Lorenzo, under control.

Weekly updates sent to Morecambe Bay staff, and seen by E-Health Insider, show that one of the aims of the plan is to allow them to “transact a day’s work in one working day - reducing the need for spending extra hours putting-in information.”

The updates also note some of the problems that the trust is still experiencing with the system. These include some live patients being identified as deceased when contacts are being created.

The 'Lorenzo - thirteen weeks' in log says that 'when creating contacts for certain non-deceased patients, a message box appears asking the use if they want to continue as the patient is deceased.'

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http://www.cfoworld.com.au/news/533368/medtech-wins-nz-e-health-contract/

Medtech wins NZ e-health contract

17:03, 15th September 2010

By Dylan Bushell-Embling (CFO World)

Health IT company Medtech Global (ASX:MDG) has won a contract to deliver an e-therapy service to the Northern DHB Support Agency.

Medtech, through a consortium led by its New Zealand subsidiary Medtech Limited, will supply a program for the assessment and treatment of mild to moderate depression for use nationwide in New Zealand.

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http://www.zdnet.com.au/suspended-e-health-plans-now-on-track-339305955.htm

Suspended e-health plans now on track

By Josh Taylor, ZDNet.com.au on September 13th, 2010

Workshops and the trial sites for e-health roll-out in Australia had to be stopped in the course of the election, but they're now back on track, according to National e-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) CEO Peter Fleming.

In the 2010 election campaign, it was unclear what the Coalition was intending to do instead of the $466.7 million investment in e-health outlined by Labor in the May budget; the spend was expected by many to be reduced significantly. According to Fleming, this meant any projects that didn't come under the Council of Australian Governments then budgets were put on hold while the outcome was determined.

"Anything that came under the $466.7 million the Commonwealth had announced we needed to be fairly quiet on. We were still working but not on that particular component," Fleming told ZDNet Australia.

"Prior to the election being called we had actually started a series of workshops around the concept of operations for an electronic health record and also the architecture [and] when we went into caretaker mode those workshops had to be stopped," Fleming said. "But they've been reconvened, almost immediately as you'd expect, and the intention there is to get a very diverse series of views from all of our key stakeholders, document that and publish it for very wide input."

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http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/hospitals-fall-well-short-of-target-for-treatment-20100913-159d9.html

Hospitals fall well short of target for treatment

Louise Hall

September 14, 2010

Sydney's biggest hospital is still struggling to see patients who have ''potentially life-threatening'' conditions on time.

Leaked documents reveal that Westmead Hospital treated just 33 per cent of triage category three patients within the recommended 30 minutes last month.

But the state government refuses to publicly release the weekly performance reports generated by the Department of Health, opting instead to publish quarterly reports eight weeks after the end of each period, when the data is up to six months out of date.

A budget estimates hearing yesterday was told West Australian hospitals report the activity in their emergency departments in real time, with a website showing the number of people waiting to be seen, the average waiting time and whether ambulances are being diverted.

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http://www.zdnet.com.au/nehta-issues-major-e-health-tender-339306025.htm

NEHTA issues major e-health tender

By Renai LeMay, ZDNet.com.au on September 15th, 2010

The Federal Government today delivered the health sector a much clearer picture of how its giant $466.7 million electronic health records project will be delivered, with the initiation of a major purchasing initiative for the project through the nation's peak e-health body, the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA).

NEHTA and the Federal Department of Health today went to market for its "National Authentication Service for Health" (NASH).

"The NASH is a foundation component within NEHTA's overall program to foster the design and development of technology to deliver the best e-health system for Australia," the government-owned company wrote. "It will provide a strong authentication service for the Australian healthcare sector and contribute to providing a capability that ensures that transactions are private, traceable and only conducted by known entities."

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http://www.theage.com.au/business/vacuum-of-facts-on-nbn-20100915-15cp8.html

Vacuum of facts on NBN

September 16, 2010

TONY Abbott wants Malcolm Turnbull to attack the government's ''reckless'' national broadband network (NBN) project and win over the independents, but so far the entire NBN cost-benefit debate has been hapless.

It's not the financial return the government-owned NBN Co gets from an NBN rollout that matters, it's the economic dividend the nation as a whole gets, either from Labor's high-speed, ubiquitous network or cheaper alternatives including the Coalition's lower-speed, lower-cost private-public hybrid.

And nobody knows the answer. Consulting firm Accenture estimated in 2001 that the economic benefits could be between $12 billion and $30 billion a year for Australia, but some of that upside has already been captured. What's left and whether it is worth the extra cost of Labor's high-speed national network is unknown - and it will be until an authoritative national cost-benefit report is produced.

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http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/wires-crossed-in-quest-for-a-new-broadband-network-20100912-156vh.html

Wires crossed in quest for a new broadband network

September 13, 2010

Narrow thinking is bogging down what is a crucial debate.

THE big winner out of the 2010 federal election was democracy. The longer we have a minority government that can't be sure it has the numbers to ram through legislation in Parliament, the more issues will have to be debated.

But the potential for open government should be put to the test to ensure it is the servant of good government.

The big campaign issue that still divides the major parties is the national broadband network. It is in the nation's interest that the decision on this be subject to proper process, including a cost/benefit study and an examination of the role of Lindsay Tanner. The former finance minister is a newly appointed director of financial advisers Lazard, which was granted a $3.4 million contract in July to advise the government on financing the project. Tanner joins former Labor prime minister Paul Keating on the board.

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http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/360336/conroy_keeps_communications_portfolio/?eid=-255

Conroy keeps communications portfolio

Kate Lundy appointed parliamentary secretary

• AAP (AAP)
• 11 September, 2010 14:25

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says her new ministry delivers on a promise to establish a portfolio dedicated to regional Australia.

It will be headed by Simon Crean, previously responsible for education and workplace relations.

The announcement on Saturday comes four days after Labor secured the support of two country independents to form minority government in the first hung federal parliament in 70 years.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/chief-executives-demand-change-from-conroy/story-e6frg996-1225919958966

Chief executives demand change from Conroy

• James Chessell and Mitchell Bingemann
• From: The Australian
• September 13, 2010 12:00AM

THE federal government has been presented with a broad array of potential media and telecommunications reforms.

This has come about as part of its promise to consider overhauling the way the industry is regulated in a convergent media era.

A survey by The Australian of media and telco executives stresses the difficulties that Broadband and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy will face in balancing competing corporate interests after the $43 billion National Broadband Network is constructed.

Although most chief executives agree many media and communications laws are out of date, there is little industry-wide consensus on the best way to tackle the challenges and opportunities brought about by the digital economy. Copyright, anti-siphoning, spectrum allocation, ownership rules, mandatory digital radio in cars, local content quotas and the operational separation of Telstra are just some of the issues executives say should be examined by the Gillard government.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/government/election-delayed-telstra-nbn-paperwork/story-fn4htb9o-1225920583769

Election delayed Telstra NBN paperwork

• From: AAP
• September 13, 2010 10:36AM

THE election held up the legal work for Telstra's multibillion dollar involvement in the national broadband network, the federal government says.

The delay reportedly has upset Future Fund chairman David Murray who says his organisation, which has a large holding in Telstra, is in the dark about the heads of agreement struck between NBN Co and the giant telco in June.

"We don't know what the terms of the agreement are," Mr Murray was quoted in Fairfax newspapers today.

Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy says details will be made available to Telstra shareholders in the coming months.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/abbott-reveals-turnbulls-role-in-baton-change-strategy/story-fn59niix-1225923460327

Abbott reveals Turnbull's role in 'baton change' strategy

• Joe Kelly
• From: The Australian
• September 15, 2010 8:43AM

TONY Abbott today revealed that Malcolm Turnbull is central to his strategy to convince the independents to shift their support from Labor to the Coalition.

One day after announcing his line-up, Mr Abbott hit the airwaves to attack the Government's $43 billion National Broadband Network.

The Opposition leader said there was “no reason whatsoever why there couldn't be a baton change at some point early in the government's term”.

“We've got to demonstrate to the Australian public that we would be a better and safer pair of hands than the Labor party, that we can be better trusted with public money than the Labor party,” he told ABC radio.

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http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/secret-tests-of-nurse-hotline-reveal-unsafe-advice-20100915-15cn9.html

Secret tests of nurse hotline reveal unsafe advice

Julia Medew

September 16, 2010

VICTORIA'S nurse-on-call hotline has given people unsafe advice and failed to answer tens of thousands of calls fast enough since it began four years ago, an Auditor-General's report says.

The report, written by Des Pearson, said although the service was generally safe, 4 per cent of 800 mystery callers designed to test it in recent years had received unsafe advice from the nurses who did not process their calls properly.

In some of the 31 cases, the nurses' failure to pick up on information about how long the callers had been in pain or whether they were dehydrated meant they did not tell the callers to seek help fast enough. The nurses who took these calls have since received coaching and the report said the results of mystery-caller testing had improved over the past year with only 2 per cent of calls deemed unsafe, compared to 5 per cent in 2008-09.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/deal-with-the-bush-puts-national-broadband-network-further-off/story-e6frg9hx-1225925080013

Deal with the bush puts National Broadband Network further off

• Tracy Lee and Nicola Berkovic
• From: The Australian
• September 17, 2010 12:00AM

JULIA Gillard's deal with the independents to prioritise connecting rural Australia to high-speed internet will delay the rollout of the NBN.

The Australian understands that NBN Co, the government enterprise overseeing the $43 billion fibre broadband project, was expected to choose the final list of construction contractors by the end of this year.

But that has now been deferred until early next year after the federal election pushed out schedules and while contractors grapple with a requirement to show in their tender process how they will prioritise building in rural and regional areas.

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http://www.theage.com.au/national/unproven-breast-tests-could-put-lives-at-risk-20100918-15ha5.html

Unproven breast tests could put lives at risk

Jill Stark

September 19, 2010

CANCER specialists warn that private clinics offering unproven breast screening methods as a ''safe'' alternative to mammograms could be putting women's lives at risk.

Clinics selling Botox, liposuction and spray tans are increasingly providing breast cancer screening that uses thermal imaging and ''electrical impedance'' technology.

The methods are being marketed to women as young as 20, with claims they can detect cancer years earlier than mammograms.

Experts say the technologies are not backed by sufficient scientific evidence and those offering tests often have little medical training.

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http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/nursing-hotline-in-fresh-row-20100916-15eo5.html

Nursing hotline in fresh row

Julia Medew

September 17, 2010

VICTORIA'S troubled nurse-on-call service has failed to reduce demand for emergency departments, doctors say. They have also questioned the quality of advice provided.

Since the service began in 2006, the Victorian government has said it was saving precious hospital resources.

But yesterday, the Victorian chairman of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, Dr Simon Judkins, said emergency departments were busier than ever.

He said ''we should not pretend'' that the service was a panacea for hospital overcrowding, saying that people who used the service were not those who spent long hours in emergency departments.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/making-skin-that-responds-to-touch-has-been-the-biggest-obstacle-in-robot-design/story-e6frg6so-1225920705987

Making skin that responds to touch has been the biggest obstacle in robot design

• From: AFP
• September 13, 2010 12:00PM

BIOTECH wizards have engineered electronic skin that can sense touch, in a major step towards next-generation robotics and prosthetic limbs.

The lab-tested material responds to almost the same pressures as human skin and with the same speed, they reported in the British journal Nature Materials.

Important hurdles remain but the exploit is an advance towards replacing today's clumsy robots and artificial arms with smarter, touch-sensitive upgrades, they believe.

“Humans generally know how to hold a fragile egg without breaking it,” said Ali Javey, an associate professor of computer sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, who led one of the research teams.

“If we ever wanted a robot that could unload the dishes, for instance, we'd want to make sure it doesn't break the wine glasses in the process. But we'd also want the robot to grip the stock pot without dropping it.”

The “e-skin” made by Javey's team comprises a matrix of nanowires made of germanium and silicon rolled onto a sticky polyimide film.

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http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/360386/uni_gives_ipads_science_students/?eid=-6787

Uni gives iPads to science students

University of Adelaide to provide free iPads to hundreds of students

• Renai LeMay (Computerworld)
• 13 September, 2010 11:17

The University of Adelaide is ditching paper-based textbooks in favour of iPads and will hand out free devices to students enrolling in a science degree in 2011, claiming the new Apple tablets will revolutionise the way science is taught at the institution.

"I believe this approach will revolutionise the way science is taught at the University of Adelaide. We will be the first university in Australia to teach in this innovative way," Faculty of Sciences Executive Dean, Professor Bob Hill, said in a statement.

"Our teaching material will be more accessible, more relevant and more frequently updated, providing the flexible learning environment that students are looking for."

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http://www.smh.com.au/world/science/dark-matter-discovery-hopes-raised-at-us-mine-20100915-15cs5.html

Dark matter discovery hopes raised at US mine

Deborah Smith SCIENCE EDITOR

September 16, 2010

TWO small signals detected in an experiment deep underground in an abandoned US iron ore mine could be the first glimpses of the mysterious dark matter that is thought to make up about 24 per cent of the universe.

Scientists are not claiming it has been discovered yet. More results are needed to be certain.

But of all the missing parts of the cosmos, dark matter is possibly the closest to being found, with three different kinds of searches under way.

Like wind in a fluttering flag, it is obviously there. We just cannot see it. ''There is very clear evidence for dark matter from the way spiral galaxies rotate,'' Ken Freeman, of the Australian National University, said. Without it, they could not spin as fast as they do.

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Enjoy!

David.