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."

Thursday, June 25, 2015

2016 Budget -The Greens Give The Government A Hand - We Have Now Had The Last Week of Parliament Until Spring.

June 25 Edition
Budget Night was May 12, 2015.
The selling phase is over and now we are to see the passage through Parliament this week.
What is most confusing is what is going on with PBS drug prices and consumer costs. It has always seemed to me Government savings and consumer benefit are tricky to reconcile. See the pharmacy section for apparently contradictory articles from Sue Dunlevy and Sam Maiden (both of News Corp.)
See the last 2 articles!
Here is some of the recent news and analysis.

General Budget Issues.

Abbott, Hockey and Dutton kick own goals

Date June 14, 2015 - 9:00PM
The government is being seen - especially in Sydney - as increasingly out of touch on same-sex marriage, housing affordability and citizenship.
EDITORIAL
And the winner is  … nobody, least of all voters. The latest Fairfax-Ipsos poll shows what happens when a government won't tackle policy problems,  looks devoid of empathy and comes across as out of touch with community values. It also shows what happens when an opposition leader struggles to capitalise.
The post-budget bounce the Abbott government enjoyed in May has vanished, thanks in part to wavering support in NSW.
The performance of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Treasurer Joe Hockey and Immigration Minister Peter Dutton seems to have riled voters.
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  • Jun 15 2015 at 12:42 PM
  • Updated Jun 15 2015 at 4:46 PM

'No solid data' small business drives the economy

It is pathetic governments thinking that small business people are big swing voters.

The start-up community says high-risk enterprises such as Uber and Airbnb can't be compared with small accounting companies or local cafes. Chris Hyde
Economist and tax expert John Freebairn has challenged the notion that small business is the engine room of the economy, as federal Parliament approved $5 billion in tax cuts for the sector.
"There is no solid data to support an assertion that small business is the driver of the economy," said the University of Melbourne professor who provided advice to the Henry tax review.
"It is pathetic governments thinking that small business people are big swing voters."
On Monday, the Senate passed the federal government's $5.5 billion budget small business and jobs package, giving a formal green light for a range of measures including the $20,000 instant asset write off that started on budget night.
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Hockey's black hole: Budget forecast too optimistic says Victoria Uni modelling

David Donovan 17 June 2015, 5:30pm 13
Victoria University economics forecasts show the Government's Economic Outlook and "path back to surplus" is a pipe dream, with GDP growth forecasts being dependent on unrealistic productivity increases and falling real wages. Managing editor David Donovan reports.
ECONOMISTS have been saying they thought Treasurer Joe Hockey's claims of a "credible path back to surplus” involved some rather heroic projections, particularly around GDP growth.
This analysis has been further confirmed, with Victoria University economic forecasts released in Melbourne this morning showing that not only are the Abbott Government’s growth forecasts far too optimistic, but that Australia’s living standards have peaked and look set to decline over the next decade.
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Australia/China Free Trade Agreement: Good for exports, less good for national sovereignty

Date June 18, 2015 - 8:22AM

Peter Martin

Analysis

Australia and China sign landmark trade deal

Australian households will save approximately $4,500 per year by 2035 from trade deals with China, Japan and South Korea.
Chinese companies will gain the right to sue Australian governments in international tribunals under an agreement that will eventually allow 95 per cent of Australian goods exports to enter China duty-free.
Declaring Wednesday a "momentous day", prime minister Tony Abbott said he and China's commerce minister Gao Hucheng would one day be able to say to their grandchildren: "yes, we were there the day this extraordinary agreement was signed".
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Health Budget Issues.

Federal cuts to health will hit poor hardest, internal documents reveal

Date June 18, 2015 - 6:12PM

Harriet Alexander

The federal government's cuts to public hospital will hit the poor the hardest, resulting in longer waiting lists and cuts to services in rural areas, internal documents reveal.
Senior public servants anticipate that elective surgery lists will blow out as the NSW government attempts to do more with less, and those who cannot afford private health cover will bear the brunt.
The federal government slashed its contribution to state health budgets in March when it walked away from the activity based funding model, whereby hospitals are allocated funding according to the operations they perform rather than simply topping up their previous budgets for inflation.
Instead it announced that funding would only be increased in line with inflation and population growth.
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Chemotherapy shake-up means patient certainty: Sussan Ley

Sean Parnell

A tiered payment scheme for the providers of chemotherapy drugs will underpin a $372 million ­investment that Health Minister Sussan Ley believes will provide greater certainty for 150,000 ­patients.
Following on from the Abbott government’s recent pharmacy dispensing agreement, Ms Ley is to announce a new five-year funding package for compounding chemists and bulk providers of chemotherapy drugs.
Soon after the Coalition took power, the new government allocated $81m over 18 months to allay concerns over the viability of chemotherapy compounding services. When that funding ­expires at the end of the month, the larger providers will continue receiving $60 per infusion from the government, but smaller, unlicensed outfits will see those payments drop to $40.
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Health Department chief Martin Bowles says restructure will tackle culture problems but won't cut jobs

Date June 17, 2015 - 7:54PM

Markus Mannheim

The federal Health Department is poised for an overhaul but its chief says the restructure won't result in any job losses.
Martin Bowles outlined the draft plan to his 3500 mostly Canberra-based staff on Wednesday, saying it would help create a better working environment.
The restructure, an outcome of a confidential "functional and efficiency review" carried out in recent months, is expected to save about $25 million a year.
It was also guided by the findings of a highly critical review last year, which warned that staff suffered from overwork, risk aversion, micromanagement and "inappropriate behaviour" such as bullying.
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Mental health sector overhaul blueprint to be delivered

Sean Parnell

A blueprint for an overhaul of the mental health sector will be delivered to the Abbott government within months as Health Minister Sussan Ley moves to secure widespread support for workable reforms.
Ms Ley has established a 13-member expert reference group, chaired by former ACT chief minister and Beyond Blue CEO Kate Carnell, and will consult widely on issues raised in the National Mental Health Commission’s damning review.
The review, provided to the government last year and leaked to the media in April, was meant to provide a way forward. But Ms Ley has already ruled out a central recommendation — to divert $1 billion in hospital funding to community care — and is still working through related issues with the States and restructuring primary health structures and funding.
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Pharmacy Issues.

Pharmacists urged to dump dubious products if they want to do doctors' work

Date June 15, 2015 - 6:01PM

Julia Medew, Health Editor

Pharmacists should stop selling dubious products including homeopathy if they want to perform work currently done by doctors under a federal government trial, a leading GP says.
As pharmacists prepare to take on more medical work under a multi-billion dollar deal with the federal government, President of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Frank R Jones, said baseless homeopathic treatments should not sit alongside conventional medical treatments in retail pharmacies.
"We would certainly encourage our pharmacy colleagues to really critically look at what they are selling at their chemists," he said.
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Cheaper pharmaceutical drugs close under biosimilars breakthrough

Sean Parnell

Australians would have greater access to cheaper drugs under a landmark proposal being considered by the Abbott government.
The independent Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, which recommends new drugs for government subsidies, has opened the door to a new range of drugs known as biosimilars.
Unlike generic medicines, which usually contain the same ingredients as their patented biologic counterparts, biosimilars act the same but may have a different composition. Their arrival promises to revolutionise drug manufacturing around the world.
Experts on the PBAC recently made a recommendation to allow biologics to be substituted with biosimilar drugs by clinicians and pharmacists if the biosimilar has been found to be a safe and effective equivalent treatment. Each application would be considered on its merits by the Therapeutic Goods Administration and PBAC.
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Cloud of doubt over 6CPA

19 June, 2015 Meg Pigram
As reported by Pharmacy News only three sitting days remain for the Senate to pass the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill, which is required before the 6CPA will be implemented.
If the bill is not passed by Thursday 26 June (the last Senate sitting day before the 30 June expiry of the 5CPA) the agreement will not be implemented and existing location rules will have expired, leaving a legislative vacuum over where pharmacies can, or cannot, be opened.
The Guild has issued a detailed statement outlining its concerns regarding the narrow timeframe remaining to pass the bill.

Health Minister Sussan Ley urges Senate to pass deal that could halve price of common medicines

21 June, 2015
The Federal Health Minister is putting pressure on the Senate to pass legislation that could see the price of some of Australia's most common medicines halved.
Sussan Ley last month signed off on new agreements with the Pharmacy Guild and Generic Medicines Industry Association that would save the budget more than $2 billion over five years.
The Government calculated that under the deal the price of more than 2,000 brands of prescription medicines would also fall, Ms Ley said.
"Overall within this package there is a very strong downward trend on the price of medicines, particularly the most common and popular medicines that people take," she said.
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Slashed drug prices could mean hundreds more for families every year even beyond the PBS

FAMILIES will save hundreds of dollars a year for everyday medicines for cholesterol, depression and osteoporosis under changes to pass the Senate this week.
More than 2,000 brands designed to treat Australia’s most common ailments will be slashed in price by up to $22 a script under a shake-up of pharmacy pricing negotiated by Health Minister Sussan Ley.
The changes will take effect from October, 2016 and will complement reforms that allow pharmacists to drop the patient co-payment by up to $1 per script to boost competition.
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Price rise hits 50 per cent of prescription medicines on July 1

  • June 20, 2015 5:07PM
  • Sue Dunlevy - news.com.au
EXCLUSIVE:Almost 5 million people using the most commonly prescribed pills found in bathroom cabinets will see their medicine prices rise by up to 39 per cent next month.
The price of cholesterol, blood pressure, stomach acid and diabetes medicines will rise by up to $3.41 a month as a result of a secret change in the way chemists are paid.
Patients with diabetes and heart problems who frequently use up to seven treatments could see their drug costs rise by around $18 a month or nearly $220 a year.
The price of nation’s biggest selling medicine, cholesterol lowering atorvastatin, used by 721,000 people will rise by $2.39 a script.
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It is going to be very interesting to see what happens to the polls and consumer confidence over the next 2-3 months - especially if we see the Senate knocking more savings back as is seeming likely! Already there was a small drop in confidence last week and but some improvement this week. The monthly measurement - post budget - was not good at all!
Enjoy.
David.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

What Do You Think Of This Summary Assessment Of Australian E-Health?

I noticed this advertisement of a paid report last week.

Australia's e-health, e-education, e-government market research report 2015 published by leading research firm

WhaTech Channel: IT Market Research Reports
Published on Monday, 15 June 2015 06:37
New developments driven by IoT and M2M - cities leading the chargeSmart Societies based on Big Data.
Here is the link:
Here are the report details:
Australia - E-Health, E-Education, E-Government
Publisher:
No. of Pages:
Published:
Paul Budde Communication
192
1 June, 2015
Of special interest to me was the introductory discussion of e-Health on OZ!

E-Health

Progress in e-health developments in Australia remains slow and low key. Unlike the USA for instance, where e-health is driven by health insurance companies and private health care organisations, the developments in Australia largely depend on government initiatives.
The fact that private companies are driving the development elsewhere is a clear indication that significant cost savings can be achieved through e-health.
Back in 2010, it looked like that the national broadband network (NBN) could be a catalyst in kick-starting these initiatives, the most important policy initiatives in this respect were linked to the Medicare reforms, which provide health insurance coverage for selected video consults in rural and regional areas, as well as projects linked to the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR). However, with the downgrading of the NBN and a lack of interest from the current government in e-health in general, hardly any new initiatives have been undertaken since 2013, while the early initiatives have largely been put on hold.
This inertia also has an effect on other e-health initiatives that were starting to emerge in parallel with the early NBN e-health developments. As most e-health services depend on policy leadership from the government as well as on a high quality, high-speed broadband network for their distribution, nothing much is excepted to happen over the next 3 to 5 years, unless something dramatically changes.
However, as the financing of the public health systems in Australia becomes increasingly costly, the opportunity exists to lower costs through more effective use of e-health.
----- End Extract.
I really don’t think that most e-health initiatives have any real dependence on the NBN. What progress we have seen - separate from the various Government initiatives - has really not needed the NBN as it was imagined in 2010.
What do you think?
David.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

This May End Very Badly In A Computer Mess For Pharmacists And Software Providers.

23 June 2015
Consumers are the big winners from the Senate passing the Australian Government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) reform package.
Media Release From Govt
Here are the details:

Senate supports cheaper medicines

for Australians

Consumers are the big winners from the Senate passing the Australian Government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) reform package.
Page last updated: 23 June 2015
PDF printable version of Senate supports cheaper medicines for Australians - PDF 236 KB

23 June 2015

Consumers are the big winners from the Senate today passing the Abbott Government’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) reform package, which will deliver cheaper medicines into the future and a doubling of investment in patient primary care and support programmes.

Health Minister Sussan Ley said today’s vote would mean patients would benefit from the package’s cornerstone measure that will see over 2000 brands of common medicines slashed in price, some by as much as half, from October 2016, whilst also saving taxpayers $2 billion over five years.

This is on top of other measures in the reform package that will benefit consumers, such as the ability for pharmacists to discount the PBS co-payment for patients by $1 for the first time and doubling investment in primary care programmes for patients to $1.2 billion over the next five years.

Ms Ley today thanked Senators from a range of political parties and persuasions for supporting the Abbott Government’s bill in full without amendment, recognising it was a win-win for consumers and taxpayers, whilst also ensuring the future sustainability of the PBS and pharmaceutical supply chain.

“Consumers are the big winners from the passing of this package, with the overall price of thousands of common medicines to fall by upwards of hundreds of dollars per year,” Ms Ley said.

“The saving will be even higher for patients on multiple medicines, with a patient treating heart problems and osteoporosis set to potentially save as much as $600 or more per year.

“Patients with concession cards will also particularly benefit from our reform package, which will allow pharmacists the ability to discount their co-payment by up to $1 per script. This will help drive greater competition in the sector and quickly add up to substantial savings for patients over a year.

“This has come about as a direct result of the Abbott Government consulting with consumers, as well as the entire pharmaceutical supply chain, to deliver the best outcomes for patients first and foremost.

“However, we have also worked closely with pharmacists, doctors and medicines manufacturers to deliver a fair package that secures the future of pharmacy and ensures continued access to latest medicines for patients.”

Ms Ley said the Abbott Government had already made over 660 new and amended drug listings worth almost $3 billion since it came to office – double the number Labor list during their final three years.

However, with spending on the PBS expected to reach $50 billion over the next five years, and another $2.5 billion worth of new listing recommendation, in the pipeline, it was essential the Government moved to ensure PBS spending remained sustainable and new drugs could be funded.

“We need to ensure spending on existing medicines is as efficient as possible to ensure taxpayers can continue to invest in listing new and potentially life-saving drugs as well.”

Ms Ley said the Government had delivered bold and innovative reform measures as part of the package, including the $1 discount, the changes to generic medicine calculations and, for the first-time, reductions in the price of patent protected medicines.

Ms Ley thanked all parties involved in consultations and negotiations over the past few months, including consumers, doctors, pharmacists, wholesalers, retailers and drug companies, for their constructive and robust negotiations.

“This is a clear example of real reform achieved by Government working closely with those at the coalface to deliver better outcomes for consumers and taxpayers.”

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Access and Sustainability Package will ensure sustainability of the PBS over the next five years (2015-2020), including:
    • A Strategic Agreement with Generic Medicines industry Association (GMiA), including a cornerstone measure that will see the price of common medicines, including generics, fall by as much as 50 per cent - or hundreds of dollars.
    • $18.9 billion Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement, including $2.8 billion additional direct investment across the pharmacy sector, such as $1.2 billion into primary care programmes.
    • $6.6 billion worth of proposed efficiencies throughout the PBS supply chain.
    • An independent review of pharmacy location rules and remuneration.
This $2.8 billion investment in pharmacy is on top of the $2.5 billion worth of recommendations on new drug listings by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) currently in the pipeline for consideration.

ENDS

 Watch the spin here - how can the Government save $2.0Billion and not get money from somewhere else?
David.

Now Here Is A Goal The State Public Health Systems And Private Hospitals Should Be Working Hard At Rather Than The PCEHR - Would Make More Of A Difference I Believe.

This appeared last week.

In search of a better discharge summary

Posted on Jun 18, 2015
By Bernie Monegain, Editor-at-Large
New research under way at University at Buffalo School of Nursing, could lead to automating hospital discharge communication and reducing readmissions. Automating, the discharge process, UB officials say, could add critical data and reduce the time it takes the information to reach community health care providers from weeks to hours.
The preliminary study, led by Sharon Hewner, assistant professor in the School of Nursing, could speed delivery of the hospital discharge summary to less than 24 hours and potentially reduce the number of patients readmitted to hospitals.
The research, "Exploring Barriers to Care Continuity during Transitions: A Mixed-methods Study to Identify Health Information Exchange Opportunities," is funded by a $35,000 UB Innovative Micro-Programs Accelerating Collaboration in Themes, or IMPACT, grant.
"It takes too long to get the information to primary care," says Hewner, in a news release. "If the summary comes in three weeks after the person has been discharged from a hospital, the chances are pretty good that they've already been back, either to the emergency room or for hospitalization."
Although hospitals have been using electronic health records for nearly 10 years, most software is geared toward processing billing. At many hospitals, the discharge summary still relies on U.S. Postal Service for delivery, largely because it is seen as the final step in medical care and has been regarded as not requiring quick processing.
Researchers will use observational data collected at Kaleida Health's hospitals on clinician workflows and documentation around care transitions between the hospital and community.
To create a discharge summary, hospital physicians dictate a report that includes a patient's diagnosis and medical treatment that is later transcribed and mailed to the patient's primary physician.
Today, summaries often omit information from nurses, social workers or therapists that can make a difference in a person's ability to manage his or her own care. The records typically take 10-14 days to reach primary care providers, long after the 48-hour window for follow-up of high-risk cases has passed, says Hewner.
Common problems include duplication of medications already in the home and confusion about where hospitals should send the summary, she adds.
"There's always a clock running on getting someone out fast enough that has a lot to do with some of the financial mechanisms that hospitals get reimbursed under," says Hewner, in a press statement.
More is found here:
The full press release is found here:
I found these two paragraphs from the release very sensible:
“Mistakes that could be minimized with an automated discharge summary that treats a patient’s release from a hospital as the next step in the patient’s care, rather than the final step, she says.
To ensure the electronic summary is accepted by all hospitals and doctor’s offices, Hewner will model the summary after the continuity of care document — a medical record created by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — that all health record software programs are required to be able to read. To transfer the electronic document, a hospital physician would only need to modify and approve the record’s existing data.”
I suspect that if we worked to improve these processes and the associated information flows rather than the money being spent on the PCEHR we would see a more measurable improvement in the health and care of the whole community!
David.

Monday, June 22, 2015

Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 22nd June, 2015.

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

Another pretty quiet week with lots of private sector activity and a dramatic re-do for the NEHTA web site!
It is interesting just how much seems to be going on in the relative absence of the dead hand of Government. I hope some good is coming from all the activity.
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Marriage of man and machine opens new world for disabled

Chris Griffith

Mind control is nearly here thanks to a device invented by a former Channel Seven newsreader that lets humans operate an iPhone or iPad without moving a muscle.
Queenslander Peter Ford was the first co-anchor of Sunrise at the Seven Network with Chris Bath back in 1996, and enjoyed a long career at US networks NBC and CNN.
But in his spare time he was a computer programmer and has developed a revolutionary device that lets sufferers of motor neurone disease, locked in syndrome, spinal injuries and other disabling conditions operate computers.
Since 2005, his company, Control Bionics, has developed NeuroSwitch which picks up electrical signals inside a muscle in severely disabled people and uses them to generate text and digitise speech, control emails, ­internet traffic, games and remote systems, including telepresence robots.
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Anatomy texts printed in 3D

15th Jun 2015
THE technology of 3D printing has created shoes, cars and even an apartment block. And now, thanks to Monash University scientists, an anatomy kit can be added to the list.
Professor Paul McMenamin, director of the Centre for Human Anatomy Education, and his team, have harnessed 3D printing to create anatomically correct body parts, complete with muscles, tendons, ligaments, nerves and blood vessels.
The team used MRI, CT and surface laser scanners to image real anatomical specimens and then printed high resolution, coloured plastic models. The anatomical models, ranging from an upper limb to a popliteal fossa, circle of Willis and portion of jejunum, will be sold to universities at a fraction of the cost of embalmed or plastinated bodies and will take only a few weeks to supply, according to a Monash news release.
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One in four apps on your Android mobile needlessly mining your personal data

Date June 21, 2015 - 12:15AM

Esther Han

Consumer Affairs Reporter

One in four apps on an Android mobile phone is loaded with an excessive number of un-related "trackers" that are funnelling valuable personal information to third parties.
Popular games apps My Talking Tom and Swamp Attack in the Google Play store are among the worst apps, each loaded with more than 20 "connected trackers", a study by Australian IT research agency NICTA shows. In contrast, the top 100 paid apps had on average 1.3 trackers each.
"There is some element of the app trying to deceive the user, doing something more than its declared function," said author Aruna Seneviratne, NICTA's research leader in mobiles.
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Big potential in linked data

Nicole MacKee
Monday, 15 June, 2015
LINKING hospital patient data across Australian states will open up a host of research opportunities to more accurately track patient care and better inform health policy, say researchers.
Associate Professor James Boyd, director of Population Health Research Network (PHRN) – Centre for Data Linkage, said expanding data-linkage capability across the country would allow researchers to conduct large, powerful analyses of patient movement and disease trends not possible within state boundaries.
“This includes things that we could never do before, like complete studies of rare diseases … anything that allows us to look at the whole population across Australia is really important”, Professor Boyd told MJA InSight.
Professor Boyd coauthored research published in the MJA that has, for the first time, linked patient-level data across four Australian states — NSW, Queensland, WA and SA. (1)
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Tech Talk: Booking system expands

Serkan Ozturk | June 17, 2015 |
In this week’s Tech Talk, we take a look at the growth of online booking systems, Apple’s latest health app and a mental health researcher’s new online tool.
Booking system expands
Online doctor appointment booking platform 1stAvailable plans to take on market leader Health Engine, following its purchase of three other online booking services, including GoBookings.
The company’s expansion will further its attempts to create a national one-stop shop for patients to make all their healthcare bookings online.
“A few years ago, practice managers were telling us they were still thinking about whether or not to start taking online bookings,” managing director Klaus Bartosch told the Australian Financial Review.
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June 15, 2015

Healthscope expands relationship with Charm Health

One of Australia’s leading private healthcare operators, Healthscope, has expanded its relationship with Charm Health by entering into a new master agreement allowing for the implementation of the CHARM™ Oncology Information Management System in Healthscope sites offering Oncology Services. The original agreement between Charm Health and Healthscope provided for a Pilot implementation of CHARM delivered under a rapid deployment methodology at Newcastle Private Hospital. The implementation at Newcastle Private Hospital was the first deployment of CHARM using the rapid deployment methodology and delivered encouraging results – with CHARM being implemented within 6 months of contract signing.
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Funding and policy pose the greatest challenges to the future of healthcare in Australia

June 15, 2015
Polycom, Inc. recently announced the results of a new survey, examining the greatest opportunities and challenges impacting the future of healthcare in 2025, identified by Australian healthcare professionals. The study, which forms part of a global survey commissioned by Polycom, the leading collaboration provider, found that 43 per cent of Australian healthcare professionals believe funding is the largest inhibitor to achieve a more positive future for the local healthcare sector. This mirrored the sentiment globally, which was recorded at 41 per cent.
Government Policy
While Government policy was noted as one of the greatest barriers to the adoption of new models in 2025, healthcare professionals are cautiously optimistic about the impact technology can have on the future of the industry. For example, 42 per cent of Australian respondents believe that Government policy is gaining momentum, albeit not at the rate they would like in terms of healthcare innovation.
Conversely, 43 per cent were less convinced, believing government policy was not adequately keeping up with healthcare innovation, specifically in relation to the advancement of technology. While only five per cent of Australian healthcare professionals believe the Government is keeping pace with innovation, the global outlook was slightly more positive at 13 per cent.
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Sore back? This Australian smart office chair could soon fix that

Date June 16, 2015

Hannah Francis

Technology Reporter

We've all heard it: sit up straight, don't slouch, ensure your keyboard and computer screen are at the right height and angle, and take regular breaks.
But with lower back pain caused by poor ergonomics responsible for a third of work-related disabilities, clearly some of us need to be reminded about the importance of good posture.
Now Australian researchers have created a potential solution to help renegade slouchers by turning the humble office chair into your very own physiotherapist.
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Privacy issues loom with wearables data

Jeff Rowe
Jun 16, 2015
We recently pointed to a discussion of how the so-called Internet of Things will soon be making a lot more information available on how each and every one of us lives our lives, and we noted that privacy matters were bound to loom large as all that data is compiled and potentially accessed.
Data consultant Anthony Mullen has provided a glimpse at some of those privacy matters in an article on the data that is increasingly available via wearable technologies. Noting that most of us have already grown accustomed to companies having some data on us, he raises the stakes by asking, “What if companies know not just who you are, what you do, who you know – but also how healthy you are, what movements you make and how you feel?”
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  • 18 June 2015 09:00

Ramsay Health Care UK Replaces HDD With Violin Memory’s All Flash Arrays Achieving Business Transformation

Network of hospitals and treatment centres deploys Violin flash storage platform to achieve zero downtime architecture with improved overall enterprise productivity
Violin Memory®, Inc., (NYSE: VMEM) a global pioneer of award-winning all flash storage platform solutions for primary storage and active workloads, was chosen by Ramsay Health Care UK to replace their hard-disk based infrastructure with all-flash storage to improve application performance and eliminate downtime. A private healthcare provider in the UK, with 30 hospitals and two specialist neurological units, Ramsay Health Care UK is a subsidiary of Ramsay Group, which operates in Australia (HQ), France (Santé) and Indonesia, with over 25,000 worldwide employees and 100+ hospitals.
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Review: PEPID, Dr Mole, Worrytime, Breathe apps

Length: (02:58)
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Can Telstra have a significant impact in eHealth when so many others have failed

on June 15, 2015 at 8:02 am
Everyone in Australia recognises Telstra as the previously Government-owned telecommunications monopoly that was privatised a little over a decade ago, while being opened to competition. However it has still remained the dominant provider of fixed line, internet and mobile services while at the same time expanding its reach as a provider of cloud services and also increasing its role as a provider of support services to the National Broadband Network (NBN) for a very considerable sum. It is presently one of Australia’s largest companies with a market capitalisation of more than $75 billion and annual turnover of more than $33 billion writes Dr David More.
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Australia's e-health, e-education, e-government market research report 2015 published by leading research firm

WhaTech Channel: IT Market Research Reports
Published on Monday, 15 June 2015 06:37
New developments driven by IoT and M2M - cities leading the chargeSmart Societies based on Big Data.
M2M (machine-to-machine) and IoT (Internet of Things) linked to data analytics (big data) developments are accelerating, and as more companies enter this sector and spend money on developing it, we will see further astonishing innovations emerge over the next few years. Applications are already being used in infrastructure, telecommunications, healthcare, education as well as in government; we will address this in detail in this report.
Given the current social, economic and political developments, it becomes clear that we seem to have reached a ceiling in our intellectual ability to address the complex issues that society is facing. Society lacks the capacity that is required to address the holistic nature of the current challenges.
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Promapp wins WA remote health services contract

Process management software provider Promapp Solutions has been contracted by Mawarnkarra Health Services (MHS) in Western Australia to deploy its solutions and services to assist doctors, nurses and administrative staff to improve the delivery of services and population health management outcomes.
Under the contract, New Zealand-headquartered Promapp will deploy standardised, agile process workflows which comply with the required standards and guidelines for community health.  It will also support MHS’s accreditation credentials to adhere to ongoing auditing requirements.

Kellene Hicks, Compliance Specialist, Mawarnkarra Health Service, said, “Promapp was selected for its reputation and achievement in deploying web-based, user-friendly and sustainable technology in both the public and private sector arenas.”
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A cloud solution for doctors on call

Dealing with more than two million expected calls this year and over a million home doctor visits health care provider National Home Doctor Service found they needed a reliable, flexible call centre solution to cater to its diverse and demanding requirements.
“Our vision is to transform health care services in Australia so they are increasingly delivered at home, in a safe and caring environment, with quality patient care delivering excellent outcomes,” says Ben Keneally, National Home Doctor Service’s chief executive officer.
NHDS last year delivered over 800,000 home doctor visits across Australia with more than three quarters of patients visited within three hours of making their bookings. Having grown through multiple acquisitions over recent years, the company had inherited a diverse range of call centre technologies which were costly to manage, lacked functionality and often resulted in a less than ideal user experience.
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Peter Ford’s Control Bionics key to locked-in syndrome

Chris Griffith

Paralysed and unable to speak, Michael Phillips’s only means of communicating is by contracting the frontalis muscle on his forehead, which he does admirably, up to nine times a second.
A device developed by an Australian senses that movement and synchronises it with a cursor shining up and down rows of a virtual keyboard on an Apple MacBook screen. A timely muscle twitch sends the cursor along the row, and a second twitch selects the key to be typed.
Phillips, 34, from Tampa, Florida, has a genetic disorder known as locked-in syndrome. But it has not prevented him becoming a prolific blogger. He writes movie reviews, short fiction and opines on life in general.
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Adobe privacy breach sparks call to move on alert laws

Sarah Martin

A security breach that led to the personal information of up to 1.7 million Australians being hacked — including passwords and credit card information — has fuelled calls for the government to fast-track privacy alert laws.
Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim has released his final report into the investigation of software giant Adobe, finding the organisation had breached the Privacy Act by failing to protect the personal information it held.
A cyber attack on the software company in 2013 accessed the ­details of 38 million Adobe customers globally, including 1.7 million Australians.
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Big data helps fight ebola with a Qlik

The era of big data delivers tools to help in all kinds of scenarios, with Qlik ensuring the major threat of ebola is no exception.
Even before the technological age brought with it so much data, public health has always involved a hefty amount of detective work.
However, the need for sleuthing is perhaps most acute in infectious diseases, where no less than the public’s health is at stake.
Qlik, the self-service data visualisation and discovery company says that ‘big data is helping to reduce this legwork for medical detectives by streamlining the process of containing diseases before they become epidemics.’
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June 12, 2015 1.41pm AEST

Listen to me: machines learn to understand how we speak

VVoice recognition technology is getting better at understanding what we are saying, even if we only say part of what we mean. So how does it work?

Author Michael Cowling

Senior Lecturer & Discipline Leader, Mobile Computing & Applications at Central Queensland University
At Apple’s recent World Wide Developer Conference, one of the tent-pole items was the inclusion of additional features for intelligent voice recognition by its personal assistant app Siri in its most recent update to its mobile operating system iOS 9.
Now, instead of asking Siri to “remind me about Kevin’s birthday tomorrow”, you can rely on context and just ask Siri to “remind me of this” while viewing the Facebook event for the birthday. It will know what you mean.
Technology like this has also existed in Google devices for a little while now – thanks to OK Google – bringing us ever closer to context-aware voice recognition.
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Enjoy!
David.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Isn’t This Just Typical Of How The Department Of Health Treats The Health IT Sector.

Recently Submissions to a Senate Enquiry have been opened on the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2015.
You can read the Submissions that have been received here:
Submission 20 came from the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA)  
Here is their Submission dated 19 June, 2015.

National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2015 [Provisions]

Introduction
The Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) is an industry association representing software vendors who develop software for healthcare. Amongst our members are all software vendors who provide software for community and acute pharmacy. That software incorporates the monthly PBS updates, claiming and other information that supports pharmacists in their dispensing role such as patient information sheets, safety alerts and decision support.
Implementation Issues
The 5th Community Pharmacy Agreement, (5CPA) provided a transition timetable to the 6CPA where work on the transition and roll out could begin early April. However, this was not possible and the 6CPA was only made publicly available on the 28th May. To implement the government’s policy changes for the roll out on 1st  July, dispensing software vendors needed to have business rules on which the software code must be based and a vendor test environment in place as soon as possible. The business rules were made available on 12th June with further clarification on the 16th June. The test environment will be made available by DHS on Monday 22nd of June.
In addition because there is no 100% guarantee that the bill will pass the vendors need to ensure that they are ready for either a continuance of the 5CPA or the new and much more complex 6CPA. If the Bill is passed on the 24th or 25th June then the software vendors have only three or four working days in which to complete their preparations. This is means that not all software vendors will be ready to implement all programs on 1st of July. Normal development cycles require at least 6 weeks and more for the complex changes that are required for the 1st  of July.
This means inconvenience, confusion and a messy change-over for pharmacy, their patients and the software vendor community.
Our concerns are highlighted by the fact that on the 10th of June the Department of Health wrote to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia informing them that the Department of Human Services ‘would not be able to automatically process a component of the Administration Handling and Infrastructure Fee (AHI) until July 2016’. We now know that DHS is going to manually reconcile some 4 million scripts until they are ready to automatically process in July 2016. We find it extraordinary that this government is passing legislation its own agencies cannot implement in an appropriate (21st century) way.
The software vendors will be implementing the whole AHI in order to support our clients as quickly as they can, but final reconciliation for July scripts, by DHS, for example, will be delayed until October 2015.
It is also noted at the time of writing the pharmacy community had not been made aware of this issue and the impact it is likely to have on their administration, cash-flow and increased complexity of daily workflow. No communication has been made to pharmacists about the inability of DHS to process some part of the new programs.
In addition the MSIA, despite representations to the Minister’s office had not been one of the stakeholders “consulted” during the 6CPA negotiations - such policy roll-out is dependent on the co-operation of the dispensing software vendors and we recommend they are consulted during the 7th CPA negotiations.
Recommendation: That the Senate consider delaying the implementation of the AHI component of the Bill until all the stakeholders are in a position to facilitate a smooth and seamless ‘go live’ where the dispensing vendor and DHS automatic payment capabilities align OR delay until October when DHS’s manual reconciliation processes will be ready.
----- End submission.
So the bottom line here is the Senate may or may not pass some legislation for implementation a week  or so later and the providers of the dispensing software will simply not ready and pharmacists and consumers will potentially disastrously disadvantaged.
Better still the MSIA has not even been consulted and neither have the pharmacists - who may have their businesses seriously disrupted by all this!
It seems to me the Minister and Department better lift their game - and soon!
What a farce from the Department that brought you the PCEHR!
David.

AusHealthIT Poll Number 275 – Results – 21st June, 2015.

Here are the results of the poll.

Do You Think The Planned Changes To The PCEHR (More Funding, Opt out, Re-development, User Incentives etc.) Will Make The PCEHR A Successful Clinically Useful System?

Yes 3% (4)

No 96% (152)

I Have No Idea 2% (3)

Total votes: 159

This has to be also one of the clearest vote ever. Virtually no one who reads here thinks the Government can fix PCEHR overall and make it clinically useful.

Good to see such a great number of responses!

Again, many, many thanks to all those that voted!

David.