Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

The Six Month Saga To Get NEHTA’s Memorandum Of Understanding Signed Finally Ends. Shows The Commitment Level From Some States.

This e-mail arrived today - Originating from NEHTA.
Good morning all
Many of us were involved last year in supporting DOHA to develop a statement setting out a commitment to eHealth by each Australian state, territory and Commonwealth government. I’m pleased to advise that a Memorandum of Understanding in relation to Developing an Effective National eHealth Capability has now been signed by relevant Ministers and is in force.
Separate to funding for NEHTA, governments have traditionally entered into a “National Partnership Agreement for eHealth” which describes the common goals and activities the country will take in the coming period. Rather than a National Partnership Agreement, Ministers decided last year that they would enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) instead, which serves much the same purpose.
The MOU recognises that the Commonwealth and all states and territories have a mutual interest in developing a national eHealth capability that will improve health outcomes and health system efficiency, and which is underpinned by national specifications, standards, services and infrastructure.
You can read the MOU on DOHA’s website
You will note that many of the initiatives and goals reflect NEHTA’s role in leading this work for the country on behalf of Australian governments. It is common in these types of documents that goals are quite high level, which makes the NEHTA strategic priorities and plan even more important to provide the details about how the goals are being achieved.
This joint commitment by Ministers is a strong endorsement for eHealth by Governments of all political persuasions (despite taking 6 months to obtain signatures from relevant Ministers – a challenge not unique to eHealth in the current environment!). In this statement, Ministers communicate their shared view that eHealth will lead to significant
improvements in the quality and delivery of healthcare provided to consumers and the efficiency of the Australian health system, which is as strong an indication as any that our funders value the work we are doing.
Here is the relevant page:

eHealth Memorandum of Understanding

The eHealth Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) commenced on 25 June 2013 and will expire on 30 June 2014, unless terminated earlier or extended as agreed in writing by the Parties.
The MOU recognises that the Commonwealth and all states and territories have a mutual interest in developing a national eHealth capability that will improve health outcomes and health system efficiency, and which is underpinned by national specifications, standards, services and infrastructure.
It is interesting to note the following.
1. It seems that NSW and Victoria were the laggards in signing up. All the others seem to have signed up quite quickly (late last year).
2. The funding arrangements give NEHTA $135M for the financial year and DoHA adds an additional $165M for the PCEHR Program
3. There are reviews of the HI and PCEHR Legislation required by mid-2013 (so now late) and end 2014 respectively.
4. Before July 2014 there is a Business Case for EHealth developed for consideration by COAG.
Additionally there is a great summary of who is doing what with whom in E-Health.
WORK STREAMS AND INTERIM GOALS FOR THE PERIOD OF THE MOU
Table 1:  Joint funded NeHTA progam
INITIATIVE
INTERIM TWO YEAR GOALS
Specifications and Standards
A standard establishes uniform criteria, methods, processes and practices, while a specification is a set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product or service.
Specifications and standards enable the meaningful and secure exchange of information, ensure a common approach to accessing the information generated by different health care providers, and allow both local and internationally developed systems to be used in Australia.
Commonwealth, States and Territories
Incremental adoption of standards by public and private healthcare providers in the following priority areas requiring a common approach:
-          critical infrastructure:
o   secure messaging;
o   information security; and
-          priority systems and communications:
o   medication management;
o   discharge summaries;
o   specialist letters;
o   electronic referrals;
o   event summaries;
o   shared health summaries;
o   radiology;
o   pathology; and
o   telehealth.
Compliance with standards and specifications when investing in new information systems.
Clinical Terminology
Clinical Terminology is a structured vocabulary used in clinical practice to accurately describe the care and treatment of patients.
Clinical Terminology improves confidence that information that is recorded, sent and retrieved supports continuity of care for patients across different times, settings and care providers.
Commonwealth, States and Territories
Work towards implementing a national approach to Clinical Terminology, including:
-          migration of AMT into SNOMED-CT AU;
-          SNOMED CT-AU / AMT (Australian Medicine Terminology) integrated into priority specifications and services; and
-          Taking steps towards incorporating SNOMED CT-AU / AMT into new clinical systems and upgrades.
Work towards integrating Clinical Terminologies into priority areas.
Specify the inclusion of standard terminology functions when procuring new systems or replacing existing systems.
Authentication for Service Providers
An appropriate authentication service is the means by which healthcare providers are authenticated to access the national eHealth system. It provides confidence around the security and authentication of access to eHealth systems, and around the secure delivery of messages (information) between systems.
Commonwealth, States and Territories
Plan for the implementation of an appropriate authentication service over the next three years.
Take steps towards adoption of an appropriate authentication service when investing in new information technology systems.
All organisations which are using PCEHR are to obtain an appropriate authentication certificate.

Healthcare Identifiers
The Healthcare Identifiers service is a national system for consistently identifying consumers and healthcare providers.
It provides a way of ensuring that an entity that provides, or an individual who receives, healthcare is correctly matched to health information that is created when the healthcare is provided.
Commonwealth
The universal provision of identifiers to all consumers of health services in Australia.
Encouraging the incremental adoption of Healthcare Identifiers by service providers in areas of the health system where the Commonwealth Government has policy and funding responsibility, such as primary healthcare, private medical specialists, and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
States and Territories
The incremental adoption of Healthcare Identifiers for patients (IHIs) into electronic record systems of public healthcare services, such as when:
-          new patients are added to electronic record systems (including new births);
-          investments in new or replacement systems are made, such as new patient administration systems; and
-          the reliability of matching legacy healthcare identifiers to the new national Healthcare Identifiers is improved.
Take steps towards Healthcare Identifiers being used in public hospitals so that:
-          inter-provider communications of health information can use Healthcare Identifiers; and
-          Healthcare Identifiers for healthcare provider organisations are more broadly adopted across health sectors (HPI-Os).
National Product Catalogue and e-Procurement
The NPC is a central repository of data for the accurate identification of healthcare products in both supply chain and clinical applications within health departments in each State and Territory. The e-Procurement solution specifies the best practice in the electronic generation of business to business transactions.
The NPC has benefits including increasing supply chain efficiency and supporting electronic trading, while the e-Procurement system will reduce order errors, improve compliance, and improve payment processes.
Commonwealth, States and Territories
The NPC will be utilised by States and Territories as appropriate in each jurisdiction.
Integrated processes implemented for acceptance of a medicine or medical device on to the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG) that are aligned with the National Product Catalogue.
Integrated processes implemented for listing of prostheses onto the national DoHA Prosthetic Rebate List that are aligned with the National Product Catalogue.
States and Territories
All State and Territory health departments will use the NEHTA eProcurement solution as is appropriate in their jurisdiction.
All states and territories consider the use of improved medical product and device recall systems.
Table 2:  Other initiatives
INITIATIVE
INTERIM GOALS
PCEHR
The PCEHR is a secure, consolidated electronic record of health information relating to a person.
The PCEHR system will help overcome the fragmentation of health information, improve the availability and quality of health information and improve the coordination and quality of healthcare provided to consumers by different healthcare providers.
Commonwealth
Progressive implementation of the national infrastructure associated with the establishment of the PCEHR system.
Encouraging progressive uptake of the PCEHR by consumers and its use by clinicians.
Take steps towards enhancing functionality of PCEHR to support pathology and diagnostic imaging.
States and Territories
Supporting the incremental connection of the health information, within the services they manage and fund, to the information held in the PCEHR system, including progressive uploading of clinical documents, subject to the approval of the Rapid Integration Project by the NEHTA Board.
Public hospitals progressively adapt software and adopt e-discharge summaries.
Commonwealth, States and Territories
Focus best endeavours on supporting connection with providers in the PCEHR lead sites and support evaluation of their benefits.
Encourage vendor community to enhance their products to interface to the PCEHR.
NHSD
The NHSD is a national directory service that includes service and provider information for all healthcare and related human services provided by government, the private sector and not-for-profit organisations.
The NHSD will make available accurate and current provider and service information to support health service providers in their delivery and transfer of care, and widen public access to quality information about health providers and their services.
Commonwealth, States and Territories
Subject to the finalisation of migration plans, incremental implementation of the NHSD, initially including:
-          GPs, pharmacies, hospitals and emergency departments, and evolving to include allied health, specialists and related human services.
Progressive replacement of existing directories with new datasets, including:
-          simple service information (such as location, contact details, opening hours), and evolving to support Endpoint Location Services, HI Service Integration and Telehealth.
Progressive enhancement of functionality.
Telehealth
Telehealth involves the use of information and communications technology in the direct delivery of healthcare.
It has the capacity to improve real-time access to healthcare information and clinical advice, and supports new models of service delivery.  Telehealth is able to facilitate the involvement of multidisciplinary teams, and allow potential for early intervention in the prevention of the onset or escalation of disease with appropriate clinical networks and support, and better self-management by consumers of their own health will be possible.
Commonwealth, States and Territories
Public specialists increasingly participating in delivering telehealth consultations to remote patients.
Agreeing and adopting the Telehealth Technical Standards.
Developing the National Telehealth Connection Service and Strategy for achieving national interconnectivity and interoperability of telehealth.
Review and enhance best practice implementation guidelines for privacy in telehealth.


All in all a very useful summary. I note NASH seems to have been pushed out a few more years. Also interesting to see the perspective NEHTA puts on this.
Comments welcome on all this.
David.

Monday, July 01, 2013

Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 1st July, 2013.

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

Really a lot of discussion of e-Health and associated issues have appeared this week - even though we might have been distracted by the carry-on in Canberra.
As you read this we will be waiting to hear how the PCEHR sign-ups have gone and wondering when we will have an election and what impact it might have on the e-Health agenda.
Otherwise we have a few interesting bits and an update on Win 8.0.
Happy New Financial Year!
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Overcoming e-health roadblocks

Steve Hambleton
There is widespread support among the medical profession for electronic health initiatives that will make it easier to provide quality health care, especially in situations and locations where services are scarce or hard to access. But there are hurdles to overcome.
Most doctors support an e-health environment that provides the profession with reliable, key clinical information that can enhance their decision-making about the health care their patients require.
While doctors appreciate the potential benefits of e-health, it is difficult for private medical practices to establish a clear cost benefit, particularly general practices that will incur the greatest costs but derive the least direct benefit.
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E-health the way to go: survey

  • by: Fran Foo
  • From: Australian IT
  • June 26, 2013 12:40PM
ROUGHLY nine out of 10 Australians believe doctors should have ready access to their medical information electronically during appointments, a new study shows.
However, only 60 per cent of them said they were willing to share healthcare information online, a bane for the government's personally controlled e-health system.
Around 1000 people participated in the survey commissioned by IT services firm Infosys.
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Frustrations hamper e-records in aged care

27 June, 2013 Antonio Bradley
The headache of implementing electronic health records in Australia's aged-care homes has been laid bare in an unflattering study.
Nursing staff in nine homes across NSW, ACT and Queensland have detailed 266 frustrations with their homes' new computer systems, in an apparent blow to the health profession's push to digitise patient care.
Top of the list of complaints in the study, published in the International Journal of Medical Informatics (online), was how hard it was to input or retrieve data.
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Long road to successful e-health system

Andrew Birmingham
Over-hyped and over-promised. That’s how Stephen Duckett, Grattan Institute’s health program director, summarised Australia’s two-decade long trek towards a digital healthcare system.
“There has been the promise that the transformation in healthcare caused by digitisation is just around the corner,” he said.
It’s a promise that includes the full integration of different healthcare systems across the private, public and allied health sectors.
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E-script software needs debugging

24th Jun 2013
DOCTORS, pharmacists and software makers have written to the department of health demanding it fix a discrepancy in the prescribing part of the e-health system which could lead to patients getting the wrong medication.
The letter from the AMA, Pharmacy Guild and others said naming guidelines given to e-health software makers had changed the convention of listing the biggest ingredient first to alphabetising them instead.
A GP who prescribed Coveram 5mg/10mg, for example, would expect the patient to get 5mg of perindopril and 10mg of amlodipine. However, those proportions would be swapped by the pharmacist’s software because amlodipine came first alphabetically, the letter warned.
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Medicare app on the horizon

  • by: Andrew Colley
  • From: Australian IT
  • June 26, 2013 12:00AM
THE Department of Human Services has revealed it is developing a Medicare app for smartphones.
The department's general manager Hank Jongen declined to reveal details of the app's capabilities including whether it would be used in conjunction with the federal government's personally controlled e-health record (PCEHR) register.
Mr Jongen, however, did confirm it would be developed as an addition to Human Services' Express Plus app which is currently offered to Centrelink customers.
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201314 Budget: analysis of health and ageing provisions

26 June, 2013
26 June 2013 | In a tough political and budget year with several major initiatives to be funded - most notably the Gonski education reforms and the National Disability Insurance Scheme, now known as DisabilityCare Australia - the health and ageing section of the 2013-14 Budget has fared reasonably well. Overall the Budget contained $43 billion in savings over the forward estimates, much of which will be funneled into these new ‘critical investments.’ Of this, $1.22 billion over five years was taken from current health programs, with the majority of this ($902 million) from Medicare.
In 2013-14 the Australian Government expects to spend $64.64 billion on health, amounting to 16.2% of all Government expenses. Health spending is forecast to grow at 8.6% over the forward estimates – this is a faster rate in real terms than education (7% of spending) and social security and welfare (35% of spending).
Australia gets good value for this spend. The fourth COAG Reform Council Report on the National Healthcare Agreement shows that the overall health of Australians and the quality of our healthcare system continues to improve. Life expectancy is increasing and the number of low birthweight babies and rates of infant mortality are dropping.
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Stephen Leeder: The Big Data trek

Stephen Leeder
Monday, 24 June, 2013
Star trek: the next generation fans will wonder whether the phrase “Big Data” is a descriptor for a new sentient android of epic proportion, a supersized upgrade of Lieutenant Commander Data.
As an addicted Trekkie, sadly, I must quickly disabuse you — even though there are people who consider Big Data to be every bit (byte?) as exciting as the USS Enterprise’s second officer.
Big Data actually refers to immense datasets that are collected in fields as diverse as astronomy and genomics. As Wikipedia tells it, “as of 2012, every day 2.5 quintillion (2.5×1018) bytes of data were created”, so there are a lot of data about.
The dynamic of Big Data is the search for relationships among these data and teasing out correlations that may not be obvious from the constituent datasets that comprise it. Our technical capacity to search immense data repositories means that correlations can be found in a way never before possible.
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Automation boosts pharmacy safety and productivity

25 June, 2013 Nick O'Donoghue
Investing in an automated dispensing robot cannot only improve efficiency, it can deter thieves from holding up stores, one pharmacy owner believes.
Speaking at the Pharmacy Guild of Australia NSW branch’s National Convention and Exhibition in Sydney last week, Guy Ewing, a pharmacy owner from the Barossa Valley, South Australia, told delegates that one of the unexpected benefits from his decision to purchase a pharmacy robot was that it had deterred robbers from targeting his store.
Mr Ewing said the robot’s loading system, which uses “chaotic logic”, meant that once a product has been loaded into the machine none of the pharmacy staff can access them.
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Committee gives thumbs up to Privacy Alerts Bill

Just over two days left to pass legislation.

A parliamentary committee investigating Australia's proposed mandatory data breach notification laws has expressed “unconditional support” for the bill and recommended it be passed by the Senate.
The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee today its released its report into the Privacy Alerts Bill 2013, which was introduced into the House of Representatives in late May.
The bill aims to force organisations to notify both the Privacy Commissioner and affected individuals when the integrity of personal information held in their systems has been compromised. 
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ePip payments rely on GPs running secure messaging tests

NEHTA announced last month that successful testing of secure message delivery had been completed between various government agencies, General Practices and five vendors.
The trial, named the Secure Message Delivery – Proof of Inter-connectivity and Deployment project (shortened to SMD), started in November last year and involved healthcare messaging vendors Argus Connect, Global Health, Healthlink, LRS Health, and Medical Objects completing physical testing across a number of sites nationally.
Following the successful trial, the first GP to complete testing was Dr Robert Lewin, who in early June completed the SMD testing at his Erskineville (NSW) practice.
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Software tool targets hepatitis risk

25th Jun 2013
A NEW computer program could help GPs spearhead a drive to tackle the incidence of liver cancer caused by viral hepatitis, a pilot study has found.
The program, which assesses the risk of chronic hepatitis B infection by using existing practice software to predict country of birth from surnames and match patients to existing surveillance records, is being seen as a breakthrough in targeting screening for those at most risk of hepatitis B infection.
Dr Benjamin Cowie, a physician with the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, said ideally every patient’s country of birth would be recorded on all practice management software and records, although this happens in less than 5% of practices.
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Consultation: International harmonisation of ingredient names

15 May 2013
This consultation closes on 10 July 2013

Consultation documents

*Large file warning: Attempting to open large files over the Internet within the browser window may cause problems. It is strongly recommended you download this document to your own computer and open from there.

International Harmonisation of Ingredient Names - Consultation paper

Draft guidance document: update to TGA Approved terminology for medicines

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HealthShare announcement welcomed by GS1 Australia and NEHTA

Published: Saturday, 22 June 2013 16:22
Submitted by Jennifer Germano
Press Release from: GS1 Australia
GS1 Australia and the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) have welcomed the recent announcement from NSW Health, advising HealthShare’s reaffirmed commitment to the National Product Catalogue (NPC) and GS1 Locatenet.
HealthShare has aligned its procurement business processes for the utilisation of data from the NPC and location information from GS1 Locatenet. The procurement areas in focus at HealthShare are cataloguing, tendering, contracting and electronic trading.
This further emphasises the importance of all suppliers taking the necessary steps to have their full catalogue (contracted and non-contracted items) on the NPC and their Global Location Numbers (GLN’s) added to GS1 Locatenet.
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Google Glass success for surgeon

25 June, 2013 Megan Howe and AAP
SPAIN: Surgeons have carried out an operation using Google Glass to allow experts in the US to live-consult on the procedure in real time, streaming it on the internet.
Last Friday, a chondrocyte transplant operation was carried out at Madrid’s CEMTRO Clinic, which was monitored simultaneously at Stanford University, while also being streamed to 150 doctors in the US, Europe and Australia, the Digital Journal reports.
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Let’s not forget what this government has done for primary care

Let’s have a look at some of the big health projects of the past years: Super clinics, Medicare locals and the PCEHR.
Interestingly, there are a few common themes – the absence of a ‘need’ or business case being one of them. But it wasn’t all bad: One of the positive achievements was plain packaging of tobacco products.
Super clinics
It all started with the super clinics idea. We didn’t really need super clinics. We needed doctors, clinical staff, funding for general practice programs and support for patients. There was no business case for super clinics, but… we got super clinics. We all knew they were going to fail, they failed – and caused a major hole in the health budget.
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Ingestible smart pills are a hard act to swallow

Date June 24, 2013 - 2:25PM

NICK BILTON

SAN FRANCISCO: They look like normal pills, oblong and a little smaller than a daily vitamin. But if your doctor writes a prescription for these pills in the not-too-distant future, you might hear a new twist on an old cliche: "Take two of these ingestible computers, and they will email me in the morning."
As society struggles with the privacy implications of wearable computers like Google Glass, scientists, researchers and some startups are already preparing the next, even more intrusive wave of computing: ingestible computers and minuscule sensors stuffed inside pills.
Although these tiny devices are not yet mainstream, some people on the cutting edge are already swallowing them to monitor a range of health data and wirelessly share this information with a doctor. And there are prototypes of tiny, ingestible devices that can do things like automatically open car doors or fill in passwords.
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Ultranet ultimatum: schools told pay up or lose it

Date June 28, 2013 - 4:28PM

Jewel Topsfield

Education Editor for The Age

The school Ultranet project was dogged from the start by inadequate planning, cost blow-outs and failed tenders.
The Victorian government’s $180 million schools IT experiment – intended to transform the way students learned – will end on December 31, with schools forced to pay if they wish to continue using the Ultranet next year.
The education department has signed a $2.8 million contract with NEC to provide the troubled school intranet for another six months to give schools time to plan for the future.
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Bungled IT system puts TAFEs on hold

Date June 25, 2013

Benjamin Preiss

The state government has blamed a ''bungled'' $35 million TAFE computer system blow-out for a lengthy delay in reporting enrolment figures.
The cost of the computer system, commissioned under the previous Labor government to manage student records, has ballooned to about $100 million, well over its estimated cost of $65 million.
But TAFEs have also allocated staff to work on the system, adding to the overall cost.
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‘Medicare Locals’ name to become legal, finally

28th Jun 2013
AAP  
THE name ‘Medicare Locals’ will become legal under new laws passed by the Senate.
The upper house today passed a bill to fix a situation the Opposition ridiculed as coming from an incompetent "light globe moment" – giving the network of primary healthcare organisations an unlawful name.
The federal government has established 61 Medicare Locals since 2011, but it was an offence to use the word "Medicare" in a business context.
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Microsoft debuts 're-blended' Windows

  • From: AFP
  • June 27, 2013 7:04AM
MICROSOFT has debuted a "re-blended" version of the overhauled Windows 8 operating system released late last year.
It also previewed new office apps for its Windows Metro interface, but said they would not be released until next year.
Windows 8.1 incorporated feedback from users and developers, and came with the promise that the US software giant was speeding up its release cycle to adapt to the dizzying pace of innovation in consumer technology.
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Review: Windows 8.1 widens gap with older PCs

Date June 28, 2013 - 9:50AM

Ryan Nakashima

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the latest update to Windows is a "refined blend" of its older operating system for PCs and its new touch-enabled interface for more modern, mobile devices.
After some hands-on time with it, the update seems to me like a patch over an ever-widening chasm.
The issue is that there are more than a billion personal computers that use some version of Windows as it existed until last October, when Microsoft unveiled Windows 8. All those PCs are responsive to mice and keyboards, not the touch screens and other input methods like voice and gestures that represent the future of computing. Making it easier to cross that bridge is one of the goals of Windows 8.1, a preview version of which Microsoft released on Wednesday.
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Enjoy!
David.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

The Lack Of Organisation In Health Information In Australia Is Putting Lives At Risk. I Fear The Root Causes Will Never Get Fixed.

This letter to DoHA appeared last week

Changes to generic description for PBS medicines with multi-ingredients

24 June 2013
Download the PDF document (297KB) titled "Joint Letter re Generic Listing of multi-active PBS Medicines"
Here is the letter:
17 June 2013
Mr Paul Madden
Deputy Secretary and Chief Information and Knowledge Officer
Department of Health and Ageing
GPO Box 9848
Canberra ACT 2601
Dear Mr Madden

Re: Changes to generic description for PBS medicines with multi-ingredients

The undersigned groups represent the medical profession, the pharmacy profession, the medical software industry and the professional indemnity insurance sector. We are writing to you to urge immediate action, led by the Department of Health and Ageing, in relation to a serious issue affecting the safe prescribing and dispensing of PBS medicines.
The decision to change the generic description of multi-active PBS medicines to an alphabetical listing in the PBS Schedule is causing confusion for pharmacists, difficulties for prescribers and software vendors and safety concerns for consumers. Alphabetising the listing of active ingredients in multi-active products to be consistent with Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT) has resulted in the generic descriptions imported by software vendors from the PBS data to be displayed for drug selection in a manner conflicting with the packaging and product description approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
This results in listing incorrect information regarding the strength of the ingredients and raises the possibility of the incorrect item being supplied. We are concerned that decisions are being made to arbitrarily change the generic description of medicines with multi-active ingredients without consideration of the impact on pharmacists and prescribers, consumers, the medical software industry or manufacturers. We believe that broad consultation with all relevant groups should be undertaken before any changes are made and the TGA be consulted as a priority as it is currently conducting a review into the labelling and packaging of medicines.
Examples of medicines that are affected are included in Attachment A, including multi-active products that may be impacted with future changes. While this is not a complete list, it indicates that more consideration needs to be given to any changes in the generic description of multi-active PBS products.
It is important to note that this issue was raised with the PBS Information Management section of your Department in the first week of May, as soon as the safety issues relating to the Coveram and Reaptan brands were identified. However the problem has been carried through to the June Schedule and now to the July Schedule, with more examples now identified.
The changes already implemented have caused significant confusion and consternation with health care professionals (see Attachment B), and increases the safety risks to consumers frompotential supply errors.
The undersigned groups request that these changes be immediately reversed, ahead of implementing a consultation with all relevant stakeholders to review the impact of such changes and consider if, when and how such changes are to be implemented in a manner that manages any negative outcomes. This consultation must also consider steps necessary to avoid other PBS schedule implementation issues such as the PBS item code confusion resulting from the rosuvastatin listings from 1 June 2013 and the inability for dispensing software or prescribing software vendors to test for PBS Schedule file issues prior to the date of effect of each Schedule.
We look forward to your urgent attention to this issue. Email addresses have been included below to allow for communication with the most relevant people in all the undersigned groups.
Yours sincerely
Prof Geoff Dobb
Vice President  
Australian Medical Association
(Email contact: bhighmore@ama.com.au)
Kos Sclavos
President
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia
 (Email contact: stephen.armstrong@guild.org.au)
Grant Kardachi
President
Pharmaceutical Society of Australia
(Email contact: peter.waterman@psa.org.au)  
Marie Ritchie
Chief Executive Officer
PDL (Pharmaceutical Defence Limited)
(Email  contact: Marie.Ritchie@pdlappco.com.au)
Bridget Kirkham
Chief Executive Officer
MSIA
(Email contact: ceo@msia.com.au)
All the attachments can be downloaded from here:
All I need to say about this is that this is a clear cut example of how lives can be put at risk when bureaucrats - despite warnings - just go ahead and implement changes which affect the operation of clinically important software.
Now - just to make sure we have even more confusion we have this:

Consultation: International harmonisation of ingredient names

15 May 2013
This consultation closes on 10 July 2013

International Harmonisation of Ingredient Names - Consultation paper

Here is what it is about:

“About the consultation

The TGA maintains a list of approved names for medicines ingredients in the form of the TGA Ingredients database. The World Health Organization's International Non-proprietary Name (INN) terminology has been adopted for new medicines ingredients as standard policy wherever possible from 2002 onwards. However, several hundred ingredients added to the ARTG prior to this time have names inconsistent with INN terminology, and require harmonisation.
The proposal put forward in this consultation is to harmonise the names of these ingredients contained within medicines, not the names of the medicines themselves. The vast majority of the proposed ingredient name changes are minor, consisting of a single letter change (e.g. amoxycillin to amoxicillin; oestrogen to estrogen; cholecalciferol to colecalciferol).
The proposed changes may affect sponsors of the following products:
  • prescription medicines
  • over the counter medicines (including sunscreens)
  • complementary medicines (both registered and listed)
  • Export Only medicines
Consumers who use products that contain these ingredients, and healthcare professionals who prescribe and dispense them will also be affected.
Feedback received from these different stakeholder groups as part of this consultation will be used to determine an appropriate strategy to implement the changes in a way that presents the least possible inconvenience to stakeholders.”
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So we are just going to change a few hundred spellings and create extra work for all sorts of people.
I wonder is all this being co-ordinated with the solution to the first issue raised? I fear not.
Bottom line is that again we have the failure of leadership and governance in the e-health space. Sadly I don’t see either side of politics (new or old) having the will or wit to improve things. I wish I could be proven wrong.
Exhausting isn’t it.
David.