The Australian government has opened its review into the Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) system, releasing a discussion paper on Friday for public consultation.
The review, announced last month, is expected to consider the balance between appropriate access to Medicare card numbers for health professionals to confirm patients' Medicare eligibility with the security of patients' Medicare card numbers.
It will also review a citizen's -- and a health professional's -- access to Medicare card numbers via the HPOS system and the accompanying telephone channel.
HPOS, introduced in 2009, is currently used 45,000 times daily, and allows medical practitioners and health providers to look up Medicare details when a person does not have a Medicare card on them.
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15 August 2017
If you’ve been watching the ABC in the last week you could be excused for starting to feel a little nervous about your future as a doctor if artificial intelligence (AI) starts to take on in the manner their reporters are suggesting it might.
On one night, they suggested that if you’re male and in a trade or profession – they didn’t delineate which sector of either – two thirds of those jobs will be done by computers within the decade and you stood a great chance of being unemployable in the not too distant future. Thanks ABC.
The situation isn’t helped by a string of consulting firm media stars appearing adding to the hype. And voodoo demographer Bernard Salt, with predictions of an ageing population creating a healthcare Armageddon.
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Anthony Mennillo Manager – Claims & Legal Services August 2017
The recent extraordinary privacy breach by a Sydney cosmetic surgery has highlighted the importance of ensuring that patient information is protected and kept secure, particularly where information is stored online.
The incident occurred at The Cosmetic Institute in Bondi Junction where, according to media reports, before and after photos of patients who had undergone breast augmentation procedures were uploaded to a publicly accessible index of the clinic’s website. The site was automatically storing photographs (including naked photographs) and pre-surgery medical forms that patients were required to submit online.
Ordinarily, this was not accessible to the public, but it is claimed that an IT error caused the information to be publicly available.
The clinic owner is reported to have taken steps to disable the website as soon as he became aware of the privacy breach, however, as is often the case in the online world, the damage was done.
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15 August 2017
“Hey, let’s bareback,” is the first thing that comes to mind when former Grindr-user Paul discovers that the hook-up app now includes HIV status in a user’s “stats”.
Having people describe themselves as HIV positive or negative, and listing the date of their last test, will encourage people to serosort, that is, pick partners with the same status, he says. But this may give a false sense of security to have unprotected sex.
“You may have had the test, but have seroconverted since,” he points out. “So, I don’t like it really, and I think Grindr doing that gives the whole thing [serosorting] some legitimacy.”
Even assuming serosorting was successful at preventing HIV transmission, it still opens the door for the spread of other STIs.
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Rachel Clun
Published: August 16 2017 - 12:20PM
Prescribing medicine involves more than just writing a script, and junior doctors and medical practitioners in Australia lack confidence in doing so, research suggests.
To help students gain the confidence required, researchers from four universities have developed a toolkit for universities to teach prescribing skills.
The project lead, pharmacist Lynda Cardiff of QUT's School of Clinical Sciences, said they found a "lack of confidence" across all 10 prescribing professions.
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Survey data shows 93% of consumers support pharmacists supplying codeine without a prescription under strict conditions
Following the results of a July survey into consumer attitudes towards the impending upscheduling of OTC codeine-containing products, the Guild has produced a snapshot of MedsASSIST data.
According to Guild figures published in this week’s edition of Forefront, 72% of consumers surveyed indicated that they would most likely to go to a doctor for a prescription for these medicines once they are upscheduled.
The Guild surveyed 585 consumers in pharmacies to obtain the data.
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Aged care, doctors and pharmacists groups are calling for seamless digital integration between aged care and health records.
Aged Care Industry Information Technology Council representative Rod Young has described Australia’s aged care services as “the forgotten sector” in the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) plan to deploy a universal health record for all Australians over the next two years.
“Aged care services are a missing piece of the health aged care electronic interface that requires urgent attention,” Mr Young told Australian Ageing Agenda.
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Deakin University launches their medical diagnosis robot for remote ultrasound procedures.
June 17, 2016
Researchers at Deakin University have created a unique and innovative solution for patients who live in remote and rural areas.
Developed by a team based in Geelong at the Institute for Intelligent Systems Research and Innovation (IISRI), the technology features 3D vision and is designed to deliver ultrasound diagnostics.
It allows the doctor or health professional to undertake an examination of a patient without having to be in the same room.
“They could be as far as 1,000km away from the ultrasound unit,” Deakin researchers explained, “or the equivalent of the distance between Melbourne and Sydney.”
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Most health apps offer to help users with some kind of problem, whether it’s remembering to take medication or treating a mental health condition.
Phendo is different. It’s appealing to users for their help.
The app is part of a global research project into endometriosis, run by Columbia University in the US, that wants to gather quantitative and qualitative data from patients.
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The strategy sets forth ambitious goals for the government to achieve by 2022.
August 14, 2017
Healthcare is a critical but contentious issue for countries all over the world. Everyone knows that it’s a necessary part of everyday life, but the disagreements come down to how it’s accessed, how it’s delivered and simply what’s available to patients and doctors alike.
To combat some of these problems, the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) has unveiled Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy, an ambitious plan that lays out the government’s plans around all things healthcare for the next five years.
Whilst the report set forward seven strategic priority outcomes to be achieved by 2022, two points of emphasis are likely to have the most impact going forward: the potential of telehealth and the way data can be shared effectively amongst healthcare providers.
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Lynne Minion | 16 Aug 2017
Orion Health has announced a “significant win” as it signs a five-year contract with the Victorian Government to implement an interoperability solution throughout most of the state’s public hospitals and health services.
The department had sought a health messaging integration application to replace the legacy JCAPS interface system and chose the New Zealand company’s Rhapsody Integration Engine.
“This is a significant win for the Australian subsidiary because it is a sizable infrastructure project,” Orion Health Australia General Manager Dr David Dembo told Healthcare IT News Australia.
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Welcome to H2 on August 25 to meet Rachel de Sain, Excecutive Manager at Australian Digital Health Agency in Australia to hear about Australia’s commitment to transform healthcare.
Meet Rachel de Sain, Excecutive Manager at Digital Health Agency in Australia at H2 on August 25 to hear about Australia’s commitment to transform healthcare and how Swedish health tech companies can benefit.
The Australian Digital Health Agency is responsible for all national digital health services and systems, with a focus on engagement, innovation and clinical quality and safety. Their focus is on putting data and technology safely to work for patients, consumers and the healthcare professionals who look after them.
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John McDuling, Lucy Battersby
Published: August 19 2017 - 7:55AM
This was the week Andy Penn finally confronted a bitter reality. Penn is a little more than two years into one of the biggest jobs in corporate Australia and insists his vision for Telstra – to become a world-class technology company – remains intact.
But while it is on that journey Telstra simply can't keep paying out the generous dividends for which it's known to its shareholders.
"I'm not suggesting we are going to be the next Netflix or Facebook or Amazon," Penn, the chief executive of the monolithic telecom carrier, told Fairfax Media this week.
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The plan you choose should depend on the size of your family and average household usage.
- The Australian
- 12:00AM August 17, 2017
Chris Griffith
Choosing a National Broadband Network provider and plan can be daunting. There are more than 140 listed on NBN’s website. So where do you start?
A good way is to assess your needs first, then look at plans and providers that can meet those needs. The same provider or plan will not suit everyone.
If you’re only emailing or browsing the web, using the internet for Facebook or online coursework, or live alone, a moderate speed plan and upload-download allowance may be enough. There’s no point paying for a high-speed link and a big download quota if you don’t use them.
But if you stream movies and television, play online games and or have a large family, you’ll need a faster speed.
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COMMENT Former prime minister Kevin Rudd first spoke of a 12Mbps NBN back in 2007, which even then wasn’t that fast, so to still have 29% of Australians stuck on 12Mbps in 2017 is shameful.
Remember when Rudd was banging on, back in 2007, about a 12Mbps network?
ADSL2+ was available back then, and promised speeds of “up to” 20Mbps depending on how close you were to the exchange, so it was no surprise to see Rudd’s 12Mbps plan quickly extended to 100Mbps and even gigabit plans later on.
With NBN Co stating that 12Mbps is the slowest speed that 29% of NBN users are connected to, as opposed to 54% on 25Mbps plans, it’s clear that many are doing so because this is the cheapest plan on offer, offering similar speeds to what users theoretically already have with ADSL2+.
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By 2025, 1.4 billion 5G connections will see fixed wireless technology becoming a fibre competitor, according to Juniper Research.
The firm is predicting that from 1 million 5G connections in 2019, which is now being billed as “the anticipated first year of commercial launch”, will grow to 1.4 billion connections in 2025, an “average annual growth of 232%".
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Amy Remeikis
Published: August 12 2017 - 9:07PM
In a world of uncertainty, there remain some constants; taxes, Donald Trump's tweets – and complaints about telecommunication services.
It's what is sparking those complaints that is up for debate.
In the three months to June, complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman increased from 8.4 complaints per 10,000 services, to nine complaints per 10,000 services, continuing an upward trend for most of the past financial year.
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Enjoy!
David.
