It Seems Physicians In The US Are Not Happy With Their EHR Systems.

Coverage of this issue appeared last week after a RAND Corporation Report. First we have.

Docs 'stressed and unhappy' about EHRs

Posted on Oct 09, 2013

By Mike Miliard, Managing Editor

While physicians recognize the benefits of electronic health records, they also complain that many systems deployed nowadays are cumbersome to use and often act as obstacles to quality care, according to a new report from RAND Corporation.

The study makes the case that being able to provide high-quality healthcare is a primary driver of job satisfaction for doctors, and that anything that hinders that ability is a source of stress. RAND officials say the findings suggest potential early warnings of deeper quality problems developing in the U.S. healthcare system.

"Many things affect physician professional satisfaction, but a common theme is that physicians describe feeling stressed and unhappy when they see barriers preventing them from providing quality care," said Mark Friedberg, MD, the study’s lead author and a natural scientist at RAND. "If their perceptions about quality are correct, then solving these problems will be good for both patients and physicians."

The findings are from a project, sponsored by the American Medical Association, designed to identify influences on doctors' professional satisfaction – a snapshot of physician sentiment as the U.S. healthcare system moves toward new delivery and payment models.

Docs who were surveyed expressed concern that current EHR technology interferes with face-to-face discussions with patients, requires physicians to spend too much time performing clerical work and degrades the accuracy of medical records by encouraging template-generated notes, according to the RAND report.

In addition, they worry that the technology has been more costly than expected, and cited frustrations about poor EHR interoperability, which prevents the transmission of patient data when and where it's needed.

"Physicians believe in the benefits of electronic health records, and most do not want to go back to paper charts," said Friedberg in a press statement. "But at the same time, they report that electronic systems are deeply problematic in several ways. Physicians are frustrated by systems that force them to do clerical work or distract them from paying close attention to their patients."

Lots more here:

http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/docs-stressed-unhappy-about-ehrs

Also we have:

EHRs, Red Tape Eroding Physician Job Satisfaction

John Commins, for HealthLeaders Media , October 9, 2013

Problems with electronic health records systems and the overall burden of rules and regulations imposed by payers and other entities are having a deleterious effect on the professional satisfaction of medical doctors, survey results find.

Physicians are most satisfied when they deliver high quality care to their patients, but problems with electronic medical records and red tape are hindering their practices, a multi-state survey shows.

The RAND Corp. report was commissioned by the American Medical Association and surveyed hundreds of physicians in six states to identify the factors that influence professional satisfaction. The survey found that only 20% of physicians said they want to return to paper medical records.

Most physicians, however, expressed deep frustration with costly and overly complicated EHRs that have fallen far short of their promise to improve practice efficiency.

"This is a vexing problem," Mark Friedberg, MD, the study's lead author at RAND, said Tuesday at an AMA teleconference.

"Physicians like some aspects of their EHR and the vast majority prefer EHR to paper. However, physicians also report that EHRs are not nearly as good as they can and should be. The priority, our study suggests, is to rapidly improve EHR usability and functionality."

Friedberg says the survey findings also suggest that dissatisfied physicians "could be seen as canaries in the coal mine for quality as an early indicator of potential problems with quality in the healthcare system."

"Most prior studies have conceptualized physician professional satisfaction as mattering because it may lead downstream to higher quality and better experiences for patients and patient care," he says. "Our findings at least suggest an alternative reason to really care about physician professional satisfaction by reversing the causal and thinking of professional satisfaction as actually an indicator of quality of care rather than something that is necessary for quality of care to occur."

Lots more here:

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/TEC-297120/EHRs-Red-Tape-Eroding-Physician-Job-Satisfaction

Seems there is a fair bit of work to do in the US. I wonder have we done a similar survey here? Does anyone know? It would be fascinating.

David.

National Health IT Projects Seems To Be Too Hard For Almost Everyone! Witness The Current Mess in The US.

The US has - as of October 1, 2013 - implemented a major change in in its health system. Termed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - or Obamacare - it has been causing vast political ructions. Underlying the ACA are what are called Health Insurance Exchanges which permit the user to find subsidised health care cover (insurance) if they are eligible. This is said to move some 30 million people into the insured population - but of course it is not cheap - hence US Conservatives hate it and US Democrats love it! As I type we now have a good part of the US Government shut down as the Conservatives try to block a law that has passed, been approved by the Supreme Court, seen Obama re-elected and has now started - go figure how that works.

The implementation of these HIX’s has been pretty messy. The website is www.healthcare.gov.  Here is some of the commentary.

Some say health-care site’s problems highlight flawed federal IT policies

By Craig Timberg and Lena H. Sun, E-mail the writers

Problems with the federal government’s new health-care Web site have attracted legions of armchair analysts who speak of its problems with “virtualization” and “load testing.” Yet increasingly, they are saying the root cause is not simply a matter of flawed computer code but rather the government’s habit of buying outdated, costly and buggy technology.

The U.S. government spends more than $80 billion a year for information-technology services, yet the resulting systems typically take years to build and often are cumbersome when they launch. While the error messages, long waits and other problems with www.healthcare.gov have been spotlighted by the high-profile nature of its launch and unexpectedly heavy demands on the system, such glitches are common, say those who argue for a nimbler procurement system.

They say most government agencies have a shortage of technical staff and long have outsourced most jobs to big contractors that, while skilled in navigating a byzantine procurement system, are not on the cutting edge of developing user-friendly Web sites.

These companies also sometimes fail to communicate effectively with each other as a major project moves ahead. Dozens of private firms had a role in developing the online insurance exchanges at the core of the health-care program and its Web site, working on contracts that collectively were worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a Government Accountability Office report in June.

The result has been particularly stark when compared with the slick, powerful computer systems built for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, which in 2008 harnessed the emerging power of social networking and in 2012 relied on aggressive data-mining efforts to identify and turn out voters. For those, the campaign recruited motivated young programmers, often from tech start-ups.

“The wizards from the campaign have no desire to contract with the federal government because it’s a pain in the butt,” said Clay Johnson, a veteran technologist for Democratic campaigns who pushes for procurement reform through his whimsically named start-up, the Department of Better Technology. “Is it possible to be good? Is it possible to do right by the taxpayer in this space? I’m not sure that it is.”

He is one of many Obama supporters hoping to help fix the Web site by drawing on the collective wisdom of software developers, a mostly left-leaning group that have been analyzing healthcare.gov and sharing their thoughts in e-mails, blog posts and exchanges on Reddit.

Among their conclusions: Requiring all users to sign in before surfing choked the system, as did insufficient server capacity. They also noted that the Web site stalls if a single step in the process — such as verifying a user’s identity — is not quickly completed.

Industry officials note that new software often is buggy, even when it is produced by respected tech firms such as Apple and Google. It’s one reason that private companies prefer gradual launches and long periods of testing before starting major marketing pushes. Although it is possible to conduct “load testing” on a site in hopes of determining how it will respond to heavy demand, there is no substitute for the crush of traffic experienced by a popular system on its official launch date.

Despite warnings of looming problems from the GAO and others, federal officials expressed surprise when the Web site failed almost immediately, with millions of people receiving puzzling, frustrating error messages.

Federal officials have blamed the problems mainly on site usage far beyond what was anticipated, with more than 8 million people trying to use healthcare.gov in the first three days after the site was fully activated on Oct. 1.

Lots more here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/some-say-health-care-sites-problems-highlight-flawed-federal-it-policies/2013/10/09/d558da42-30fe-11e3-8627-c5d7de0a046b_story.html

Another set of interesting comments are here:

Why US government IT fails so hard, so often

One hint: Windows Server 2003 is still good enough for government work.

by Sean Gallagher - Oct 11 2013, 1:15am AUSEST

• Government
• Information Technology

The rocky launch of the Department of Health and Human Services' HealthCare.gov is the most visible evidence at the moment of how hard it is for the federal government to execute major technology projects. But the troubled "Obamacare" IT system—which uses systems that aren't connected in any way to the federal IT infrastructure—is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the government's IT problems.

Despite efforts to make government IT systems more modern and efficient, many agencies are stuck in a technology time warp that affects how projects like the healthcare exchange portal are built. Long procurement cycles for even minor government technology projects, the slow speed of approval to operate new technologies, and the vast installed base of systems that government IT managers have to deal with all contribute to the glacial adoption of new technology. With the faces at the top of agency IT organizations changing every few years, each bringing some marquee project to burnish their résumés, it can take a decade to effect changes that last.

That inertia shows on agency networks. The government lags far behind current technology outside the islands of modernization created by high-profile projects. In 2012, according to documents obtained by MuckRock, the Drug Enforcement Agency's standard server platform was still Windows Server 2003.

Magnifying the problem is the government's decades-long increase in dependency on contractors to provide even the most basic technical capabilities. While the Obama administration has talked of insourcing more IT work, it has been mostly talk, and agencies' internal IT management and procurement workforce has continued to get older and smaller.

Over 50 percent of the federal workforce is over 48 years old—and nearly a quarter is within five years of retirement age. And the move to reliance on contractors for much of IT has drained the government of a younger generation of internal IT talent that might have a fresher eye toward what works in IT.

But even the most fresh and creative minds might go numb at the scale, scope, and structure forced on government IT projects by the way the government buys and builds things in accordance with "the FAR"—Federal Acquisition Regulations. If it isn't a "program of record," government culture dictates, it seems it's not worth doing.

Lots more here:

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/why-us-government-it-fails-so-hard-so-often/

The second article especially tells it like it is. Little retained skill in government, lots of contractors, political deadlines, older technology, serious cost constraints, wrong metrics and so it goes.

Remind you of anything here is OZ - and I am not talking about the NBN!

David.

It Seems We Have More Work To Do In Working Out What Telehealth Makes A Difference.

This appeared a little while ago.

A unified approach for the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia

Ambica Dattakumar, and others | Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES)

2 September, 2013

A unified approach for the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia

02 September 2013 | This paper provides a conceptual framework for the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia, and also provides an evidence base that illustrates the current state of telehealth evaluation on an international scale.

Executive summary

This paper was produced as part of a one year study, funded by the University of Melbourne interdisciplinary seed grant. This paper will firstly provide a conceptual framework that incorporates the key dimensions, criteria and measures that need to be considered in the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia.

Telehealth evaluation can be considered to be the examination of the effectiveness, appropriateness and cost of a telehealth service, by answering four fundamental questions 1) does the intervention work; 2) for whom; 3) at what cost and 4) how does it compare with the alternatives? In helping to address these questions for telehealth evaluation in the Australian context, this framework is linked back to a national, validated health performance framework. The AIHW framework was also used to form a link between the evaluation criteria and measures described in international literature, to health performance indicators. This resulting conceptual framework will be modified and validated with 3 to 5 case studies involving interviews, focus groups with key stakeholders involved in telehealth implementations. This framework will make it more efficient to undertake evaluation of any Australian telehealth implementation, to produce more widely applicable findings, to share these and to improve practice based on the collective results. This paper will be of interest to decision makers, coordinators of telehealth programs or others who are either involved in or concerned about the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia. It is a timely and valuable resource, especially in light of the recent recommendations put forth by the Health Innovation and Reform Council, Department of Health, Victoria.

This paper also provides an evidence base that illustrates the current state of telehealth evaluation on an international scale. A systematic review of systematic reviews on telehealth implementations and evaluations indicates that:

The research around telehealth evaluation is plenty. Some focus on telehealth outcomes in particular specialties, some on specific outcomes such as cost-effectiveness, and others on frameworks and guidelines to support telehealth evaluation.

Telehealth evaluation can be complex with a great many potential inputs, outputs, outcomes and stakeholders. This may be one reason for a lack of established telehealth evaluation protocols, which in turn has hindered decision-making to implement wide scale initiatives.

• There is no standardisation of definitions, criteria, measures across the literature leading to ambiguity and confusion.
• There is no link between the telehealth evaluation criteria and health performance indicators. Therefore, the overall impact of telehealth on the healthcare system cannot be judged.
• The methodologies for conducting telehealth evaluations are not consistent.

The paper is divided into three sections. Section 1 provides an overview of the literature, method and proposed framework. Section 2 provides the proposed framework for telehealth evaluation. Section 3 describes the results of grouping the various criteria and measures mentioned in the literature. This paper also has two Appendices. Appendix A should be used to support the reading of Section 3. Appendix B provides an annotated bibliography of the papers reviewed, as well as further information on the literature.

The full paper etc. is found from this link:

http://apo.org.au/research/unified-approach-evaluation-telehealth-implementations-australia

I suspect the executive summary says it all. Summarised it is really saying until there is consistent credible evaluation of projects that supports there expansion there will be little expansion in use.

I would argue that is really saying - back to you - the proponents to follow the evaluation framework and show you are really adding value!

Pretty easy really I reckon.

David.

The Privacy Commissioner Releases Some Invaluable Research On Public Attitudes To Health Information Privacy.

This report appeared a few days ago.

Social media poses greatest privacy risk: OAIC survey

Only 9 per cent of respondents considered social media websites trustworthy

• Hamish Barwick (Computerworld)
• 09 October, 2013 14:02

Nearly half of Australians surveyed by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) cited social media websites as the greatest risk to their privacy.

The Community Attitudes to Privacy survey was conducted in June 2013 with 1000 Australians by Wallis Consulting Group.

It found that 48 per cent of Australians believe online services, including social media, pose a privacy risk while only 9 per cent of respondents considered social media websites to be trustworthy when it came to protecting their privacy.

Australian Information Commissioner, Professor John McMillan, said the survey results confirm there's a growing concern in the community about privacy risks associated with social media since the survey was last conducted in 2007.

The survey also found that consumers want data security protection to be similar in both the public and private sectors. For example, 96 per cent of survey participants expect to be informed if their information is lost by a government agency or public company.

…..

 “The Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Bill 2012 which comes into law in March 2014 will increase protection around the handling of Australian information that is transferred off-shore, and it will be interesting to see how attitudes change as a result of this,” he said.

Lastly, survey participants were asked whether certain industries were trustworthy. The three most trustworthy industries were health service providers, trusted by 90 per cent of participants; financial institutions, trusted by 74 per cent (up from 58 per cent in 2007); and government, trusted by 69 per cent of respondents.

The full article is here:

http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/528618/social_media_poses_greatest_privacy_risk_oaic_survey_/

That health providers are pretty trusted is important. That news laws are coming is under recognised I suspect - there are some pretty big changes happening in just a few months.

Here are the relevant links:

http://oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-resources/privacy-reports/oaic-community-attitudes-to-privacy-survey-research-report-2013

OAIC Community Attitudes to Privacy survey Research Report 2013

Community Attitudes to Privacy survey – research report 20138.84 MB 

Community Attitudes to Privacy survey – research report 2013 – Appendix146.19 KB

On health information privacy there are some very interesting findings.

Medical and health information

Health professionals sharing patient information

Respondents were asked to nominate which of four options best described their views on access to health information (multiple responses had been allowed previously).

Q22 Which of the following four options best describes when you think it would be ok for your doctor to share your health information with other health professionals?

Australians displayed quite different opinions with one in three saying that: such information could be transferred without their consent to treat the specific problem at hand (31%); or that consent should always be sought (31%). A quarter of people (25%) take a more relaxed approach, saying that they are happy for information to be shared between health providers for anything to do with their health. A further one in eight (13%) are happy for information to be transferred in serious or life-threatening cases. While the question was asked differently in previous surveys, the pattern of response is similar to the past.

In 2007, just over one in three people (35%) felt that the transfer of health information is appropriate when the purpose is related to the condition being treated. A similar proportion (25%) stated health information should not be transferred unless they ask the patient for their consent. One in four people were happy for their information to be transferred if it had to do with their health, while less than two in ten respondents (17%) said it would be acceptable if they had a serious or life threatening condition. There was no variation in gender or age.

Health professionals discussing patient information

Chart 11 shows that the number of Australians prepared to accept their doctor discussing personal health details with other professionals without consent has increased over time from six in ten (59%) in 2007, to two thirds (66%) in 2013.

This shift has been driven by a large difference in the views of people at both ends of the working spectrum. Whereas in 2007, half (53%) of white collar and six in ten (59%) of blue collar workers agreed with this proposition, in 2013 the proportions are six in ten (63%) and three quarters (76%). People living in blue collar households remain the most accepting of this, but all other sectors of society have drawn closer in their opinions.

Women and men continue to hold slightly different views with seven in ten men (72%) and six in ten women (60%) now supporting their doctors discussing their health details without consent. This support has increased amongst both sexes since 2007 (64% and 55% respectively then).

Q23 To what extent do you think your doctor should be able to discuss your personal medical details with other health professionals in a way that identifies you without your consent if they believe this will assist your treatment?

Age does not seem to have a strong impact on this relationship. However, older people (aged 35+ years) were more likely to be accepting of their doctor discussing personal health details with other professionals without their consent (68%) in comparison to younger people (aged 18-34 years) (60%).

Here is the direct link to the material and charts:

http://oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-resources/privacy-reports/oaic-community-attitudes-to-privacy-survey-research-report-2013#_Toc368300745

I think there is a real warning in these results regarding the need to have consent when transferring health information. I suspect this is going to force considerable workface change over the coming years.

A very useful survey indeed.

David.

Labor's Problem - They Have The Ideas But No Impelmentation Skills.

We have just seen new Labor leadership elected today. They seem to be saying they know what went wrong and don't need to study it.

I would suggest that means they will spend a decade + out of power. Besides the obvious policy bloopers their main problem has been, to me, implementation incompetence of a spectacular order.

Think, e-Health, the NBN, Health Reform, BER, Pink Bats and so it goes on.

Just coming out with 'though bubbles' that have not been carefully thought through has been their greatest failure and people need to know this will stop. Having ideas is about 10% of the work - making things work is the other 90%.

Labor needs to grasp this and work out how to develop this competence - or they are doomed forever - or until memory fades. Having women in the cabinet does not get you there, neither does theoretical talent. Actual real-world skills are needed!

This is important as for our democracy to work we need competence on both sides of politics in actual implementation. I wonder does either side have enough?  I fear not on the evidence so far.

The issue is, of course, just crucial if we are to make serious e-health progress! Any one who thinks we have the implementation skills for e-health in Canberra I suspect is dreaming.

Is my analysis right? Would love to hear.

David.

Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 14th October, 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

We have finally heard from our new Health Minister - and we have the following as one of the first initiatives:

• Development of a comprehensive e-mental health platform. With funding of $5 million over three years the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre will develop a new, comprehensive e-mental health platform to make it easier for young people to access advice and support 24 hours a day.

Other than that we have Senator Conroy admit he had no idea just how big the NBN was as a project, the Pharmacy Guild losing its IT Guru, some interesting Privacy Reports and the Nobel Prizes.

Additionally a colleague (Dr Terry Hannan) has been given the honour of giving a lecture on International E-Health at Grand Rounds at Johns Hopkins Medical Centre in the US. This is a pretty big honour so congratulations Terry. (The hospital in Baltimore was rated  in 2013 as the Best Hospital in the US!)

Here is the link

http://dhsi.med.jhmi.edu/GrandRoundsVideo/3a8112dcad5b447fa8755f8b9d83cb681d.p2g/SilverlightLoader.html

Enjoy.

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http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2013-dutton001.htm

Abbott Government Commitment to Mental Health

The Minister for Health, the Hon Peter Dutton, MP announced the first Australian Government actions to progress mental health as a key priority area.

Page last updated: 10 October 2013

10 October 2013

The Minister for Health, the Hon Peter Dutton, MP announced today the first Australian Government actions to progress mental health as a key priority area.

Marking World Mental Health Day, Mr Dutton said there was clearly a need for a comprehensive review of mental health services to ensure that they are delivered to those people most in need, and that funding is provided to those programmes that have proven to be most effective on the frontline.

"People with mental illness deserve the same standards of access and treatment as those with a physical illness and I have asked the National Mental Health Commission to do a thorough review of all existing services, state and federal and non-government, to assess how well and efficiently they are helping their clients," Mr Dutton said.

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http://ehealthspace.org/news/telehealth-trial-delivers-tech-surprise

Telehealth trial delivers tech surprise

Posted Tue, 08/10/2013 - 15:19 by Fran Molloy

An NBN telehealth trial that began earlier this year in Geraldton, WA, with aged care services providers Silverchain has already delivered some unexpected benefits to elderly clients monitored remotely through tablet devices.

“The aim of our telehealth trial was to monitor elderly clients with chronic conditions in their homes, so that we could give good in-home monitoring without having a daily nurse visit,” says telehealth nurse Linda Patmore.

Patients have been supplied with a tablet device with a specific app where they record their own blood pressure, temperature, blood oxygen levels and general health.

They log in daily to record vital signs and answer key questions, and interact with community health staff via video-conference calls.

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http://www.pharmacynews.com.au/news/latest-news/bill-scott-steps-down-from-guildlink-after-heading

Bill Scott steps down from GuildLink after heading profession’s IT push

9 October, 2013 Chris Brooker

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has paid tribute to the “tremendous contribution to community pharmacy” of Bill Scott (pictured), who yesterday stepped down as Chairman of GuildLink.

Under Mr Scott, a former president of the Guild’s Victorian branch, GuildLink has grown to become an industry leader in IT facilitated health programs delivered through community pharmacy.

Outgoing Guild national President, Kos Sclavos, said: “Bill Scott has made an outstanding contribution to the Guild and Guild family companies. Not only did Bill lead the negotiations on two Guild-Government Agreements, he also played a key role in the growth and development both GuildLink and the pharmacy software company Fred IT Group”.

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http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/528618/social_media_poses_greatest_privacy_risk_oaic_survey_/

Social media poses greatest privacy risk: OAIC survey

Only 9 per cent of respondents considered social media websites trustworthy

• Hamish Barwick (Computerworld)
• 09 October, 2013 14:02

Nearly half of Australians surveyed by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) cited social media websites as the greatest risk to their privacy.

The Community Attitudes to Privacy survey was conducted in June 2013 with 1000 Australians by Wallis Consulting Group.

It found that 48 per cent of Australians believe online services, including social media, pose a privacy risk while only 9 per cent of respondents considered social media websites to be trustworthy when it came to protecting their privacy.

Australian Information Commissioner, Professor John McMillan, said the survey results confirm there's a growing concern in the community about privacy risks associated with social media since the survey was last conducted in 2007.

-----

http://oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-resources/privacy-reports/oaic-community-attitudes-to-privacy-survey-research-report-2013

OAIC Community Attitudes to Privacy survey Research Report 2013

Community Attitudes to Privacy survey – research report 20138.84 MB 

Community Attitudes to Privacy survey – research report 2013 – Appendix146.19 KB

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http://apo.org.au/research/unified-approach-evaluation-telehealth-implementations-australia

A unified approach for the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia

Ambica Dattakumar, and others | Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES)

2 September, 2013

A unified approach for the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia

02 September 2013 | This paper provides a conceptual framework for the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia, and also provides an evidence base that illustrates the current state of telehealth evaluation on an international scale.

Executive summary

This paper was produced as part of a one year study, funded by the University of Melbourne interdisciplinary seed grant. This paper will firstly provide a conceptual framework that incorporates the key dimensions, criteria and measures that need to be considered in the evaluation of telehealth implementations in Australia.

Telehealth evaluation can be considered to be the examination of the effectiveness, appropriateness and cost of a telehealth service, by answering four fundamental questions 1) does the intervention work; 2) for whom; 3) at what cost and 4) how does it compare with the alternatives? In helping to address these questions for telehealth evaluation in the Australian context, this framework is linked back to a national, validated health performance framework.

-----

http://www.mhs.gov.au/

Minister for Human Services

On 18 September 2013, Senator the Hon Marise Payne was sworn in as Minister for Human Services. A new Minister for Human Services website will be available shortly. Archived media releases are available for the Department of Human Services including Centrelink, Child Support, Medicare and from previous Ministers.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/technology/byod-set-to-grow/story-e6frgakx-1226736944132

BYOD set to grow

• Jennifer Foreshew
• Australian IT
• October 11, 2013 12:00AM

ALMOST 40 per cent of Australian chief information officers plan to maintain or grow investment in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) but most saw it as a disadvantage, a study shows.

The findings come from international IT recruitment firm Harvey Nash, which also found most CIOs were not in favour of shadow IT, usually software or hardware in an enterprise that was not supported by the IT department.

Harvey Nash chief executive officer Albert Ellis said social change had driven BYOD.

"They (CIOs) say all of this is bad because they feel there are risks associated (with it) and they are absolutely right, but you can’t fight the inevitable," he said.

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http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/hospitals-the-testing-ground-for-app-to-save-unborn-babies-20131012-2vf5j.html

Hospitals the testing ground for app to save unborn babies

Date October 13, 2013

Julie Power

A mobile phone app that helps mothers-to-be be more aware of their unborn baby's movements could cut the rate of stillborn deaths by as much as 30 per cent, according to a study.

Researcher Vicki Flenady said a pregnant woman's perception that her baby's movements had stopped or reduced was a more reliable tool of identifying a baby at risk than any measurement of the numbers of kicks.

Professor Flenady collaborated on a Norwegian program to raise awareness among pregnant women of the importance of noticing reductions in a baby's movements. Now she is hoping to roll out a similar program, with a new smartphone program called My Baby's Movements, to 27 hospitals in Australia and New Zealand as part of a push by the ANZ Stillbirth Alliance to reduce stillborn deaths.

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http://www.zdnet.com/the-one-medical-android-app-to-have-if-stranded-on-a-deserted-island-7000021608/

The one medical Android app to have if stranded on a deserted island

Summary: As a very full-featured free app, Medscape is worth a download. If you have space on your device, I strongly recommend you download the full database so you're prepared in any eventuality.

By Denise Amrich for ZDNet Health | October 9, 2013 -- 19:18 GMT (06:18 AEST)

Public service announcement: Since the author has not, in fact, ever been stranded on a desert island — the closest she ever came was a bad night at the Cheesecake Factory — the survival techniques listed below are unlikely to work. If you're stranded on a deserted island and find yourself ill, please, as always, visit your doctor.

Let's say you're on a cruise in the middle of the Caribbean. You've been keeping your Android phone charged up, because you never know when the seas will be calm and you need to fire up a game of Angry Birds to keep you occupied.

All of a sudden, something goes terribly wrong. You hit an iceberg, or an oil drilling platform, or somehow find yourself in the middle of the Bermuda triangle.

The ship goes down. The only survivors are you and your special someone (and, of course, your trusty Android device which has somehow withstood the ravages of saltwater). You're alive, barely, and find yourselves washed up on a deserted island.

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http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/nbn-rollout-was-too-ambitious-stephen-conroy-20131011-hv244.html

NBN rollout was too ambitious: Stephen Conroy

Date October 11, 2013

Ben Grubb

Former communications minister Stephen Conroy has conceded construction targets for the national broadband network were "overly ambitious" and overestimated the capacity of the construction industry.

In his first public speech since resigning as the communications minister when Kevin Rudd was reinstated as leader of the Labor Party, Senator Conroy also said the Liberal Party's failure to do a cost-benefit analysis of its national broadband network after calling on Labor to do so was "bullshit" and "hypocrisy".

But he admitted Labor had not realised the scale of the challenge when planning the NBN rollout.

 “[The rollout targets] were always ambitious," he said on Friday at a lunch in Sydney held by the Australian Computer Society. "We wouldn't have been so aggressive if we'd known how tough it was for the company.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/nobel-to-chemists-who-built-a-bridge-from-newton-to-quantum/story-e6frg6so-1226736466623

Nobel to chemists who built a bridge from Newton to quantum

• The Australian
• October 10, 2013 12:00AM

THREE molecular chemists have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for devising computer simulations that are used to understand and predict chemical processes.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said research by Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel in the 1970s has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as the purification of exhaust fumes or the photosynthesis in green leaves.

That kind of knowledge makes it possible to optimise catalysts for cars, drugs and solar cells, the academy said.

"The work of Karplus, Levitt and Warshel is ground-breaking in that they managed to make Newton's classical physics work side by side with the fundamentally different quantum physics," the academy said. "Previously, chemists had to choose to use either/or."

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/god-particle-scientists-peter-higgs-and-francois-englert-win-nobel-prize/story-e6frg8y6-1226735064310

'God particle' scientists Peter Higgs and Francois Englert win Nobel prize

• AP
• October 09, 2013 11:33AM

NEARLY 50 years after they came up with the theory, but little more than a year since the world's biggest atom smasher delivered the proof, Britain's Peter Higgs and Belgian colleague Francois Englert have won the Nobel Prize in physics for helping to explain how matter formed after the Big Bang.

Working independently in the 1960s, they came up with a theory for how the fundamental building blocks of the universe clumped together, gained mass and formed everything we see around us today. The theory hinged on the existence of a subatomic particle that came to be called the Higgs boson - or the God particle.

In one of the biggest breakthroughs in physics in decades, scientists at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, announced last year that they had finally found a Higgs boson using the $10 billion collider built in a 27km tunnel under the Swiss-French border.

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Enjoy!

David.