How Long Do You Think It Will Be Before This Moves To Compulsory?

This appeared during the week.

Federal government pushing ahead with opt-in digital ID system

Tom McIlroy

Published: October 5 2017 - 12:00AM

The federal government is taking its plans for an opt-in digital ID system to the private sector for feedback, offering the potential of a nationally-consistent tool for Australians to prove their identities online.

Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation Angus Taylor will announce plans to approach industry for expert feedback on standards for the project in Wollongong on Thursday, as it seeks a workable and well-developed framework ahead of wider testing.

The move comes as the government seeks drivers' license data and photos from state and territory governments as part of its efforts to build a national database for anti-terror strategies.

Currently in beta testing phase, the proposed opt-in digital identification system is planned for use in government services and by the private sector, through the new $40 million Govpass platform, a secure system being developed by the government's Digital Transformation Agency.

It seeks to replicate in-person proof of ID processes online, saving users time and improving convenience.

The system also has the potential to reduce the number of usernames and passwords and could be used in the future for banking, utilities and other online services and financial transactions.

"We've been working with key stakeholders, including government, industry and privacy advocates over the past 12 months to draft this framework," Mr Taylor said.

"It includes robust rules for accrediting identity providers and standards to prove an identity.

"It lays out privacy, security, risk and fraud management requirements, as well as standards for usability and accessibility."

More here:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/federal-government-pushing-ahead-with-optin-digital-id-system-20171004-gytz7t.html

I reckon this will last a year or two as opt-in then migrate to opt-out and then become virtually compulsory if you wish to have any dealings with Governments, the banks and so on.

See if I am not wrong and you can wonder how long the IHI Service and the Medicare Care / Number will last while you are at it!

David.

Has The TV Show “Person Of Interest” Just Become All Too Real? It Sure Seems To Be On The Way!

This appeared last week:

• Updated Oct 4 2017 at 5:16 PM

Facial recognition database pushes us towards Orwellian future

by Paul Smith

News that state governments plan to acquiesce to a federal government move to provide the facial biometrics of citizens from driving licences for use in a national security database should set off all kinds of alarms in the minds of law-abiding Australians.

The system will work by allowing CCTV cameras everywhere to recognise our faces because of the details taken from our licences. These photographs are used to create a faceprint which, like a fingerprint, can distinguish us based on the unique features that we possess.

Anyone who has had a passport photo taken in the facial recognition era will know that it is still not always an exact science – lighting has to be correct and people have to remove their glasses, but this is so the software can create a perfect map of our faces. The system records things like the distance between your eyes, bone structure, how thick your lips are, what shape your nose is, how big your eyes are and – depending on how detailed they are going – can include retina scans.

Apple is confident enough in the technology that it will use facial recognition technology in place of a fingerprint scan for users to unlock the new iPhone X. However it remains to be seen how great or fallible that is.

Software and technology related to the processing and analysis of images is speeding ahead rapidly; ASX-listed Brainchip for example has developed what it describes as Spiking Neuron Adaptive Processor (SNAP) technology, which it says learns autonomously in the same way as a human brain.

It is being used in software which allows casinos to spot dealer errors on baccarat tables in casinos through their security cameras and is beginning to pick up significant work in the fields of civil surveillance.

At least two European airports, including Bordeaux in France, are using it with their cameras to help identify intrusions, and it is being used by some European police departments to watch people coming through subway stations in order to match faces with lists of wanted suspects.

There can be no doubt that from the perspective of trying to combat terrorist attacks, the ability to identify anyone on a watch list in real-time is potentially valuable, but the amount of privacy and protection against governments that citizens are being forcibly made to give up is horrifying.

Currently the federal government has access to faceprints of everyone that has recently got a new passport: this change would hoover up the vast majority of the rest of us, and remove any notion of a right to expect privacy in our day-to-day lives (and yes, we have no Bill of Rights.)

We are being asked to trust that centralising this identifying data with the federal government of the day is fine, but what about any future government that may take power?

It isn't too much of a sci-fi nightmare leap to see how this could lay the groundwork for a country where you are unable to go anywhere without a record of what you are doing.

We are being asked to trust future governments, who we do not yet know, and who could very feasibly be more authoritarian than the current regime, not to use these new powers to keep everyone under surveillance, restrict their movement and stop public gatherings of anyone they don't like.

The argument that you only need to worry if you are doing something wrong does not fit with the notion most of us have about a free society where you can do things on the quiet if you want.

There are plenty of things that many people do which are legal and unthreatening but which could cause a great degree of embarrassment or personal turmoil if they were exposed publicly. As well as protecting us, we are about to give the current and future governments free reign to collate footage to blackmail or smear anyone they like.

More here:

http://www.afr.com/technology/facial-recognition-database-pushes-us-towards-orwellian-future-20171004-gyu8qu

There is also coverage of the COAG meeting here:

Privacy groups slam COAG over face recognition database

• 06 October 2017
• Written by  Sam Varghese

Major privacy organisations in Australia have condemned the decision by the Council of Australian Governments to agree to hand over drivers' licence photos for the creation of a national facial recognition database.

A joint statement from the Australian Privacy Foundation, Digital Rights Watch, Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, NSW Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty Victoria, South Australian Council for Civil Liberties and Electronic Frontiers Australia came down hard on the decision, announced yesterday.

There has been an estimate that setting up such a system would cost hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions.

Australian Privacy Foundation chairman David Vaile said: “This government has proven it is blind and deaf to privacy and personal information security threats. Make no mistake – this database will affect all Australians, even the most conscientious and law-abiding.

"It will likely generate massive ‘false positive’ lists that will flood our very effective police and security services with useless distractions. We’ve already seen calls for ‘scope creep’ to cover welfare enforcement, and there’s every reason to expect this capability will come to be used to identify people with unpaid fines and other minor issues that have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”

More here:

https://www.itwire.com/government-tech-policy/80228-privacy-groups-slam-coag-over-face-recognition-database.html

What I find interesting is that an initiative to assist with detecting terror attacks has now morphed (in 24 hours or less) to a system that can be used if you are even suspected of a crime that carries a 3 year jail sentence (Leigh Sales Interview on 7:30). Talk about scope creep!

Frankly I am not so worried by a potential terror attack as to think this is a great idea when the AFP etc. have done a pretty good job without such draconian and horribly expensive tech! At the very least the system should stick to terror!

As for locking 10 year olds up for two weeks if suspected by a terror offence – please, I suspect we have all gone a trifle mad and have become scared of our own infant shadows.

David.

More Questions Keep Coming About The Security Of The myHR. Maybe A Little More Disclosure Would Help Allay Concerns.

This appeared last week:

Are organisations in denial about My Health Record’s safety?

Antony Scholefield

6 October 2017

TECH TALK

If you believe the RACGP, the AMA and the Australian Digital Health Agency, the illegal sale of Medicare numbers doesn’t expose any security dangers with My Health Record.

All three organisations have fronted a Senate inquiry into how Medicare numbers ended up for sale on the ‘dark web’ for a bargain rate of about $25 each in July.

The prevailing theory is that whoever stole the Medicare numbers exploited legitimate access to the Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) website, and senators wanted to know if the My Health Record could be vulnerable in the same way.

AMA chair of general practice Dr Richard Kidd told the inquiry: “It’s unfortunate that media reports incorrectly link the sale of Medicare card details to My Health Record’s security because it can undermine public confidence in it.”

Digital Health Agency CEO Tim Kelsey added that a Medicare number was just one of five bits of information needed to access My Health Record. That’s in addition to IT security measures like PKIs, HPI-Is and NASHes, he said. 

It’s acronym city and sounds pretty safe, but is it much different from accessing HPOS? Let’s look at the theory behind how someone used HPOS to obtain the Medicare numbers and sell them on.

A buyer supposedly sent whoever was obtaining the numbers a person’s name and birthdate, which they used to look up the Medicare number in HPOS. To do this they would have to be using a computer fitted with a valid PKI certificate to access HPOS. And this leads to the theory that whoever the dark web vendor was, they were probably using a practice computer.

Now, if you look at the My Health Record provider portal fact sheet, you’ll see the system required to gain access is not too different. You need the patient’s first name, last name, birthdate, Medicare number and gender. So, on paper, anyone wanting to access the system could do so as long as they had the Medicare number. 

All they would then need to do is guess the right gender, given that they already have the individual’s birth date and name.

More here:

https://www.medicalobserver.com.au/professional-news/are-organisations-in-denial-about-my-health-record-s-safety

It seems to me the author is making a cogent case for some clarity as to where he is wrong or some changes to make sure he is really wrong!

I look forward to the press release explaining the next steps!

David.

A Very Long Read That Only Makes One More Concerned About The Safety And Reliability Of Critical Systems – In Healthcare and Elsewhere.

This appeared a little while ago.

The Coming Software Apocalypse

A small group of programmers wants to change how we code—before catastrophe strikes.

Lynn Scurfield

There were six hours during the night of April 10, 2014, when the entire population of Washington State had no 911 service. People who called for help got a busy signal. One Seattle woman dialed 911 at least 37 times while a stranger was trying to break into her house. When he finally crawled into her living room through a window, she picked up a kitchen knife. The man fled.

The 911 outage, at the time the largest ever reported, was traced to software running on a server in Englewood, Colorado. Operated by a systems provider named Intrado, the server kept a running counter of how many calls it had routed to 911 dispatchers around the country. Intrado programmers had set a threshold for how high the counter could go. They picked a number in the millions.

Shortly before midnight on April 10, the counter exceeded that number, resulting in chaos. Because the counter was used to generating a unique identifier for each call, new calls were rejected. And because the programmers hadn’t anticipated the problem, they hadn’t created alarms to call attention to it. Nobody knew what was happening. Dispatch centers in Washington, California, Florida, the Carolinas, and Minnesota, serving 11 million Americans, struggled to make sense of reports that callers were getting busy signals. It took until morning to realize that Intrado’s software in Englewood was responsible, and that the fix was to change a single number.

Not long ago, emergency calls were handled locally. Outages were small and easily diagnosed and fixed. The rise of cellphones and the promise of new capabilities—what if you could text 911? or send videos to the dispatcher?—drove the development of a more complex system that relied on the internet. For the first time, there could be such a thing as a national 911 outage. There have now been four in as many years.

It’s been said that software is “eating the world.” More and more, critical systems that were once controlled mechanically, or by people, are coming to depend on code. This was perhaps never clearer than in the summer of 2015, when on a single day, United Airlines grounded its fleet because of a problem with its departure-management system; trading was suspended on the New York Stock Exchange after an upgrade; the front page of The Wall Street Journal’s website crashed; and Seattle’s 911 system went down again, this time because a different router failed. The simultaneous failure of so many software systems smelled at first of a coordinated cyberattack. Almost more frightening was the realization, late in the day, that it was just a coincidence.

“When we had electromechanical systems, we used to be able to test them exhaustively,” says Nancy Leveson, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has been studying software safety for 35 years. She became known for her report on the Therac-25, a radiation-therapy machine that killed six patients because of a software error. “We used to be able to think through all the things it could do, all the states it could get into.” The electromechanical interlockings that controlled train movements at railroad crossings, for instance, only had so many configurations; a few sheets of paper could describe the whole system, and you could run physical trains against each configuration to see how it would behave. Once you’d built and tested it, you knew exactly what you were dealing with.

Software is different. Just by editing the text in a file somewhere, the same hunk of silicon can become an autopilot or an inventory-control system. This flexibility is software’s miracle, and its curse. Because it can be changed cheaply, software is constantly changed; and because it’s unmoored from anything physical—a program that is a thousand times more complex than another takes up the same actual space—it tends to grow without bound. “The problem,” Leveson wrote in a book, “is that we are attempting to build systems that are beyond our ability to intellectually manage.”

The software did exactly what it was told to do. The reason it failed is that it was told to do the wrong thing.

Our standard framework for thinking about engineering failures—reflected, for instance, in regulations for medical devices—was developed shortly after World War II, before the advent of software, for electromechanical systems. The idea was that you make something reliable by making its parts reliable (say, you build your engine to withstand 40,000 takeoff-and-landing cycles) and by planning for the breakdown of those parts (you have two engines). But software doesn’t break. Intrado’s faulty threshold is not like the faulty rivet that leads to the crash of an airliner. The software did exactly what it was told to do. In fact it did it perfectly. The reason it failed is that it was told to do the wrong thing. Software failures are failures of understanding, and of imagination. Intrado actually had a backup router, which, had it been switched to automatically, would have restored 911 service almost immediately. But, as described in a report to the FCC, “the situation occurred at a point in the application logic that was not designed to perform any automated corrective actions.”

This is the trouble with making things out of code, as opposed to something physical. “The complexity,” as Leveson puts it, “is invisible to the eye.”

The attempts now underway to change how we make software all seem to start with the same premise: Code is too hard to think about. Before trying to understand the attempts themselves, then, it’s worth understanding why this might be: what it is about code that makes it so foreign to the mind, and so unlike anything that came before it.

Technological progress used to change the way the world looked—you could watch the roads getting paved; you could see the skylines rise. Today you can hardly tell when something is remade, because so often it is remade by code. When you press your foot down on your car’s accelerator, for instance, you’re no longer controlling anything directly; there’s no mechanical link from the pedal to the throttle. Instead, you’re issuing a command to a piece of software that decides how much air to give the engine. The car is a computer you can sit inside of. The steering wheel and pedals might as well be keyboard keys.

Vastly more here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/09/saving-the-world-from-code/540393/

What to say. For myself, not having developed a system to fly a plane or operate a car lots of this was new and fascinating. The more I read the more I wondered just how far we were from ‘peak complexity’ as far as software was concerned and what happens next?

Surely we are going to have to increasingly rely on AI to evaluate and test virtually all critical systems and as I read I was reminded of the old coding / programming truth than all bug free programs were trivial and any non-trivial programs have bugs!

The next ten years are going to be very interesting as the issues raised in this article are faced and solved.

A great and worthwhile read!

David.

Weekly Australian Health IT Links – 9th October, 2017.

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

A pretty quiet week with some effort to discuss secondary use of myHealth Record data and how far it should be allowed to go. An opportunity exists to have your say for a bit over a month.

Otherwise stuff in surveillance to prevent terrorism and a new opt-in digital identity system.

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http://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/government-seeking-input-additional-uses-my-health-record-private-medical-information

Government seeking input into additional uses for My Health Record private medical information

Lynne Minion | 06 Oct 2017

The use of Australians’ private medical information for commercial gain by pharmaceutical companies, and the provision of “patient identified” data to researchers, are options on the table as part of a public consultation process into My Health Record launched yesterday.

The Federal Department of Health has contracted HealthConsult to develop a framework and draft implementation plan for the secondary use of data contained in My Health Record, described in the Public Consultation Paper as “the first data set that has the potential to allow analysis around the full set of health services received by a person”.

The framework will determine which organisations can gain access to this valuable personal information, which will include GP and specialist diagnoses, as well as pathology tests and medications prescribed.

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https://www.itnews.com.au/news/govt-details-plan-to-share-de-identified-e-health-data-474834

Govt details plan to share de-identified e-health data

By Justin Hendry on Oct 6, 2017 11:48AM

Begins consultation process.

The federal government has kicked off public consultation on the potential secondary uses of de-identified health data sourced from the e-health records of Australians.

The plan to mine My Health Record data for research and public health purposes has been on the cards since late 2015, when the Department of Health approached the market for advice on the steps it would need to take before allowing the “secondary use” of the information collected.

It engaged health industry management consultancy firm HealthConsult shortly after, and planned to begin consultations on the development of a framework for the secondary uses of My Health Record data in October 2016.

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https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/628212/public-input-sought-use-health-record-data/

Public input sought on use of health record data

De-identified My Health Record data could potentially be used by researchers

Rohan Pearce (Computerworld) 06 October, 2017 07:00

A public consultation has begun on potential uses of de-identified data drawn from Australia’s national e-health record system.

The government in its May budget set aside $374.2 million for the expansion of the My Health Record system as it shifts to an ‘opt-out’ model. Under the new model, a health record will be created for every Australian citizen unless they request otherwise. (Once a record is created it can’t be deleted, just rendered inaccessible.)

Some 5 million Australians already have records.

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https://www.6minutes.com.au/news/star-trek-style-hologram-doctors-horizon

Star Trek-style hologram doctors on the horizon

'Holoportation' will reduce travel costs and waiting times for patients

Antony Scholefield

3rd October 2017

Star Trek-style holograms of GPs could soon replace real home visits, according to an Australian home-care company.

Like the holographic chief medical officer in the hit TV series Voyager technology currently in development will allow doctors to offer real-time ‘face-to-face’ consultations via virtual reality, says Perth-based company Silver Chain.

The project, called Enhanced Medical Mixed Reality, uses HoloLens, a virtual reality headset developed by Microsoft.

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http://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/australian-home-care-provider-launches-world-first-holographic-doctor

Australian in-home care provider launches world-first holographic doctor

Lynne Minion | 03 Oct 2017

A global-first holographic doctor that promises to revolutionise patient care and allow people to remain in their homes for longer has been launched by an Australian community care provider.

Developed by the Silver Chain Group through its partnership with Microsoft, the ground-breaking technology will project healthcare professionals into clients’ homes via a “HoloLens” headset and share clinical data in real time.

Chief Executive of Silver Chain Dr Christopher McGowan said the innovation integrates “mixed reality” technology with real life and holograms, and will prevent the need for some patients to be transferred to hospital.

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https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/world-first-holographic-doctor-launched-in-perth-ng-b88615356z

World-first holographic doctor launched in Perth

Cathy O’Leary, Medical Editor

Tuesday, 3 October 2017 12:20AM

The world’s first “holographic doctor” who can be suspended into the living rooms of patients has been launched in Perth.

The cutting-edge technology, developed by community health provider Silver Chain in conjunction with Microsoft, will allow health care professionals to visit clients in holographic form, projected via a “HoloLens” headset.

Doctors will effectively “see through the eyes of the nurse” as the consultation takes place and they share access to clinical data such as blood pressure in real time.

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http://www.afr.com/technology/facial-recognition-database-pushes-us-towards-orwellian-future-20171004-gyu8qu

• Updated Oct 4 2017 at 5:16 PM

Facial recognition database pushes us towards Orwellian future

by Paul Smith

News that state governments plan to acquiesce to a federal government move to provide the facial biometrics of citizens from driving licences for use in a national security database should set off all kinds of alarms in the minds of law-abiding Australians.

The system will work by allowing CCTV cameras everywhere to recognise our faces because of the details taken from our licences. These photographs are used to create a faceprint which, like a fingerprint, can distinguish us based on the unique features that we possess.

Anyone who has had a passport photo taken in the facial recognition era will know that it is still not always an exact science – lighting has to be correct and people have to remove their glasses, but this is so the software can create a perfect map of our faces. The system records things like the distance between your eyes, bone structure, how thick your lips are, what shape your nose is, how big your eyes are and – depending on how detailed they are going – can include retina scans.

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http://www.afr.com/news/policy/george-orwell-had-nothing-on-whats-coming-around-the-corner-in-facial-recognition-20171005-gyv3q4

• Updated Oct 6 2017 at 5:49 PM

George Orwell had nothing on what's coming around the corner in facial recognition

by Andrew Clark

Lester walks into a KFC outlet in Hangzhou, eastern China, orders a chicken, picks up the order and bolts for the door. By the time he has run across the adjoining street, patrolling police have pictures of him on their mobile phones, including details of prior convictions in Europe and Australia. They pick him up seconds later.

Around the same time, Stephen Paddock strolls into the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino Hotel in Las Vegas, takes 10 suitcases up to his room on the 32nd floor, and unpacks 23 guns.

Three days later he smashes out a window in his room and rains death on an outdoor country music festival on the ground below, murdering 58 people and injuring about 500, before shooting himself as police close in.

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http://www.smh.com.au/national/public-service/federal-government-pushing-ahead-with-optin-digital-id-system-20171004-gytz7t.html

Federal government pushing ahead with opt-in digital ID system

Tom McIlroy

Published: October 5 2017 - 12:00AM

The federal government is taking its plans for an opt-in digital ID system to the private sector for feedback, offering the potential of a nationally-consistent tool for Australians to prove their identities online.

Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation Angus Taylor will announce plans to approach industry for expert feedback on standards for the project in Wollongong on Thursday, as it seeks a workable and well-developed framework ahead of wider testing.

The move comes as the government seeks drivers' license data and photos from state and territory governments as part of its efforts to build a national database for anti-terror strategies.

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https://www.medicalobserver.com.au/professional-news/are-organisations-in-denial-about-my-health-record-s-safety

Are organisations in denial about My Health Record’s safety?

Antony Scholefield

6 October 2017

TECH TALK

If you believe the RACGP, the AMA and the Australian Digital Health Agency, the illegal sale of Medicare numbers doesn’t expose any security dangers with My Health Record.

All three organisations have fronted a Senate inquiry into how Medicare numbers ended up for sale on the ‘dark web’ for a bargain rate of about $25 each in July.

The prevailing theory is that whoever stole the Medicare numbers exploited legitimate access to the Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) website, and senators wanted to know if the My Health Record could be vulnerable in the same way.

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https://which-50.com/digital-upheaval-asks-demanding-questions-austalias-health-sector/

Digital upheaval asks demanding questions of Austalia’s health sector

Jeremy Knibbs / October 5, 2017

Digital transformation has been slow to arrive to the healthcare sector because the sector is inordinately complex, fraught with risk and regulation and the economics of supply and demand, especially around the services of doctors, has retarded the normal rapid equalisation of informational power that  digital brings to the consumer, in this case, the patient.

But things are starting to change and quite quickly as businesses outside of the sector start to chase opportunities.

 Take Equinix as a case in point. 

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http://medicalrepublic.com.au/australian-digital-health-crossroads/11228

5 October 2017

Australian digital health at the crossroads

Posted by Jeremy Knibbs

Digital transformation has been slow to arrive in the healthcare sector, for good reason.

The sector is inordinately complex, fraught with risk and regulation, and the economics of supply and demand, especially around the services of doctors, has retarded the normal rapid equalisation of informational power that digital technology brings to the consumer, in this case, the patient.

But things are starting to change, and quite quickly.

One sign is the interest in the sector of a little known, but huge and powerful, company called Equinix. In the terminology of the seminal economics bestseller Freakonomics, Equinix is a “connector” organisation. Connectors are the facilitators of mass markets. They arrive and work at the beginnings of big changes to markets.

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https://www.computerworld.com.au/article/628272/design-guide-help-health-app-devs-stay-legal-safe/

Design guide to help health app devs stay legal and safe

Researchers trawl legislation and best practice policies to simplify developers' work

George Nott (Computerworld) 06 October, 2017 13:41

There are more than 250,000 health apps on the market, but a lack of clear regulation and developers’ ignorance of existing rules, could mean they are putting users at risk.

The sheer number of apps – and the widespread perception they provide cost-effective, accessible healthcare – has given rise to consumers receiving delayed or unnecessary diagnoses, being recommended inappropriate treatment, getting misled into making purchases, as well as a raft of privacy issues.

Researchers at the University of Sydney are hoping to minimise such apps’ potential for harm with a design guide aimed at developers, to help them meet their regulatory requirements and follow emerging best practices.

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http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/health-mediarel-yr2017-hunt103.htm

Australia’s new digital mental health gateway now live

As part of our over $4 billion annual investment in mental health, the Turnbull Government is today launching our new digital mental health gateway – Head to Health.

Page last updated: 07 October 2017

PDF printable version of Australia’s new digital mental health gateway now live - PDF 96 KB

7 October 2017

As part of our over $4 billion annual investment in mental health, the Turnbull Government is today launching our new digital mental health gateway – Head to Health.

Head to Health is an essential tool for the one in five working age Australians who will experience a mental illness each year.

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http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/blood-test-never-checked-coroner-rules-fiona-stanley-hospital-failure-caused-death-20171006-gyvit2.html

'Blood test never checked': Coroner rules Fiona Stanley Hospital failure caused death

Heather McNeill

Published: October 6 2017 - 8:36AM

A failure by doctors at Fiona Stanley Hospital to check an abnormal blood test likely led to the death of patient Jared Olsen, a coroner's report has found. 

Mr Olsen, 41, died in March 2015 after having an adverse reaction to a drug given to him to treat his Crohn's disease. 

State Coroner Ros Fogliani found medical professionals failed to communicate Mr Olsen's "critical" blood test results with one another, instead entering the details in an electronic system, which was missed due to the shift-work nature of hospital staff.

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https://www.australiandoctor.com.au/news/missing-discharge-summary-denies-gp-chance-save-patient

Missing discharge summary denies GP chance to save patient

Coroner blasts hospital's approach as 'unacceptable'.

Rachel Worsley

6th October 2017

A GP was denied the chance to save his patient’s life after a hospital failed to check if he received a discharge summary requesting that critical blood tests be carried out.

Jared Charles Olsen, 41, had been prescribed prednisolone and the immunosuppressant mercaptopurine by doctors at Perth’s Fiona Stanley Hospital for pain and vomiting arising from his Crohn’s disease.

The WA Coroner’s Court was told a discharge summary detailing the need for follow-up blood tests was mailed to the “attending doctor of Bull Creek Medical Centre (Nominated Primary Healthcare Provider Person)”.

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https://www.medicalobserver.com.au/professional-news/in-search-of-a-tech-solution-to-poor-drug-compliance

In search of a tech solution to poor drug compliance

Antony Scholefield

28 September 2017

TECH TALK

Surely in this day and age there’s a fancy tech solution to the age-old problem of people not taking their medications? 

Enter stage left the smart pill bottle, a medication container that glows or makes a noise if a patient fails to open it to take their pills at the prescribed time.

Such smart pill bottles, which are already on the market, are also programmed to send alerts to friends or family if patients miss their meds for two out of three days.

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http://www.healthintersections.com.au/?p=2711

Cultural Factors affecting Interoperability

Posted on October 4, 2017 by Grahame Grieve

One of the under-appreciated factors that affects how successful you’ll be at ‘interoperability’ (for all the various things that it might mean) is your underlying culture of working with other people – your and their underlying expectations about whether and when you’ll compromise with other people in order to pursue a shared goal.

Culture varies from organization to organization, and from person to person. And even more, it varies from country to country. As I work with different countries, it’s clear that in some countries, it’s harder to get people to to sacrifice their short term personal interests for shared long term communal interests. There’s plenty of research about this – mostly phrased in terms of micro-economics. And it very often comes to down trust (or lack thereof). Trust is a critical success factor for success at compromise and collaboration. And it’s pretty widely observed that the level of trust that people have in institutions of various kinds is reducing at the moment (e.g. 1 2 3).

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http://www.zdnet.com/article/australians-made-over-2000-privacy-related-complaints-to-information-and-privacy-commissioner-in/

Australians made over 2,000 privacy complaints to Commissioner in 2016-17

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner received 2,494 privacy-related complaints during the 12-month period.

By Asha McLean | October 3, 2017 -- 05:59 GMT (16:59 AEDT) | Topic: Security

Australian Information and Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim has revealed the number of privacy complaints made to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) increased this year, with the total reaching 2,494.

Speaking at the iappANZ 2017 Summit in Sydney on Tuesday, Pilgrim said the "upward swing of public interest" highlighted Australia's increasing trust in the OAIC and comfort with their right to lodge such a complaint.

"In the past year, we've seen a 17 percent increase in the number of privacy complaints brought to my office, with a total of 2,494 complaints investigations being received," he said.

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https://www.cio.com.au/article/628204/inside-metro-north-qld-tech-consolidation/

Inside Metro North QLD’s tech consolidation

How the hospital group is using IT to cut costs and improve patient care.

Byron Connolly (CIO) 05 October, 2017 15:25

Metro North's Antony Batrouni: "Our own internal processes were so lacking that if we tried to put them into the cloud, it was going to be a recipe for disaster."

It’s been a tumultuous 10 years for Queensland Health with the fallout from a $1.2 billion payroll disaster – which led to a Commission of Inquiry – doing very little to retain the public’s trust in its technology infrastructure.

Queensland Health’s CEO and CIO Dr Richard Ashby told CIO Australia in July that the department applied one lesson learned from the debacle to all its current and future tech projects: that having applications, hosting, and managed services undertaken by one organisation is very beneficial.

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http://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/clinical-services/news/dr-app-smartphone-apps-effective-for-depression-1183204971

Dr app: smartphone apps effective for depression

By Australian Hospital + Healthcare Bulletin Staff
Wednesday, 04 October, 2017

While ‘Dr Google’ may not be the safest way to self-diagnose and medicate, research has shown that purpose-built smartphone apps are an effective treatment option for depression.

New Australian-led research has confirmed that smartphone apps could pave the way for safe and accessible interventions for the millions of people around the world diagnosed with this condition.

Depression is the most prevalent mental disorder and a leading cause of global disability, with mental health services worldwide struggling to meet the demand for treatment.¹

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http://medicalrepublic.com.au/new-early-warning-system-thunderstorm-asthma/11206

3 October 2017

New early warning system for thunderstorm asthma

Posted by Felicity Nelson

The Victorian Government has launched a thunderstorm asthma monitoring system in time for the start of the pollen season.

The system will provide early warnings about thunderstorm asthma to the public from October until the end of December.

It is a key component of the state’s $15 million response to last year’s disastrous season which resulted in nine fatalities.

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http://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/clinical-services/news/e-triage-tool-improves-emergency-outcomes-1271770221

E-triage tool improves emergency outcomes

By Australian Hospital + Healthcare Bulletin Staff
Tuesday, 03 October, 2017

An E-triage tool developed in the US is improving detection of patients with critical outcomes and is being used in place of human assessment.

Nurses and doctors typically use the emergency severity index (ESI) during triage to assign a score from Level 1 for patients who are the most critically sick to Level 5 for patients who are the least sick. A patient’s ESI level determines in which area of the emergency department that patient will be seen, places the patient in a queue and influences provider decision-making throughout the patient’s care process.

However, the algorithm can be completely subjective, said Dr Scott Levin, PhD, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Nurses and physicians make a quick assessment on whether the patient can wait solely based on their clinical judgment.” In most cases, researchers say patients are assigned to a Level 3 and not entirely differentiated. “We thought that Level 3 patient group included a large mix of patients who are pretty sick and others who weren’t, and our goal was to determine whether these patients could be sorted out,” he said.

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https://mumbrella.com.au/myhealth1st-signs-significant-advertising-contract-475174

MyHealth1ST signs significant advertising contract

Will increase Q2 revenue by additional 10-15%

1ST Group Limited (ASX: 1ST), the Australian online health, media and technology group, today announced that a leading eye care products company has signed an agreement to advertise its products to optometry customers on 1ST’s market-leading technology platform, MyHealth1st.com.au.

‘This agreement – which will increase 1ST’s Q2 revenue by an additional 10% and 15% – validates the group’s business model and demonstrates its potential as more health care practices join the MyHeath1ST platform,’ said Klaus Bartosch, 1ST Group’s managing director.

‘Around 60% of independent optometry practices have signed up to use the MyHealth1ST platform to book appointments, and increasingly they are also using our value-adding products such as EasyFeedback and EasyRecalls, for which we charge on a subscription basis or through a usage fee.  The optometrists’ patients provide a highly engaged audience, and we are delighted that a leading eyecare products company has recognised the opportunity to leverage our market presence and unique capabilities.

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http://www.healthcareit.com.au/article/overuse-knee-surgeries-and-fast-uptake-telehealth-nsw-report-finds

Overuse of knee surgeries and fast uptake of telehealth in NSW, report finds

Lynne Minion | 27 Sep 2017

A rapid rise in telehealth and the overuse of keyhole surgery on patients with no prospect of benefit are among the findings of new research into healthcare performance in NSW released today.

The Bureau of Health Information’s annual Healthcare in Focus 2016 report compares NSW’s performance to the health systems of 11 countries and other Australian states and territories, and found that technology can be a benefit and a burden.

“The ageing population and accompanying rise in chronic disease, advances in technology and increasing consumer expectation are among the drivers of increasing healthcare utilisation,” the report says.

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https://www.ceda.com.au/Events/Library/Q171031

Digital health innovation

QLD Oct 31

Tim Kelsey will provide a briefing on the work of the Australian Digital Health Agency following the approval of the National Digital Health Strategy.

Speakers

Tim Kelsey, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Digital Health Agency

Event overview

Tim Kelsey is Chief Executive of the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) which is responsible for all national digital health services and systems, innovation and clinical quality and safety.

Twelve months in the role at the ADHA Tim will provide a briefing on the work of the Agency following the approval of the National Digital Health Strategy (2018-2022) and expansion of the My Health Record system.

This briefing is by invitation only to CEDA Trustees. Trustees are senior leaders nominated by CEDA member organisations. At CEDA boardroom briefings Trustees hear from an informed, expert guest speaker in a private, small group setting. Invitations to boardroom briefings are a valued benefit of CEDA membership. Chatham House Rule applies.

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https://itbrief.com.au/story/dept-human-services-crowned-winner-governments-cyber-war-games/

Dept of Human Services crowned winner of Government's Cyber War Games

Sara Barker October 03, 2017

The Australian Government’s Department of Human Services was crowned the winner in a cybersecurity competition designed especially for the country’s government agencies last week.

The Government Cyber War Games included five teams, two of which were made up of representatives from multiple departments.

The exercise, Operation First Wave, was designed as a round-robin tournament in which teams attacked and defended a specially-designed cyber range linked to a working replica Lego city.

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https://www.itwire.com/security/80197-it-pros-not-confident-of-aussie-data-breach-prevention-study.html

IT pros not confident of Aussie data breach prevention: study

• 04 October 2017
• Written by  Peter Dinham

Nearly 70% of Australian IT professionals lack confidence in the ability of their organisations to prevent, detect and resolve data breaches, according to a new research report.

And the Ponemon-conducted global study, commissioned by identity services provider Centrify, reveals that 68% of surveyed Australian IT professionals report they do not believe their companies have a high level of ability to prevent breaches.

The study also reveals that 40%of Australian IT practitioners report their organisation had suffered a data breach involving sensitive customer or business information in the past two years, which Centrify says translates to a serious breach exposing extensive confidential data in two in every five organisations.

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http://www.hospitalhealth.com.au/content/aged-allied-health/news/new-online-dementia-guide-provides-practical-information-122243149

New online dementia guide provides practical information

By Laini Bennett
Friday, 29 September, 2017

A new, plain English guide to dementia is now available online.

Designed for people caring for or living with dementia, The Brain: Dementia includes information on types of dementia and their causes, risk factors including genetics and lifestyle choices, and diagnosing and living with dementia.

Dementia is Australia’s second largest killer; more than 400,000 Australians live with dementia and that number is expected to climb to 1.1 million by 2056.

Published by the Queensland Brain Institute in partnership with Alzheimer’s Australia, the 24-page guide is a practical resource for those impacted by dementia.

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 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/nbn-inquiry-demands-drastic-refocus-of-broadband-project-474418

NBN inquiry demands drastic refocus of broadband project

By Ry Crozier on Sep 29, 2017 2:34PM

But government unlikely to agree.

A joint federal inquiry into the NBN wants a drastic overhaul of the project, including an independent audit, better information, and a “minimum” of fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC) in the rest of the fixed-line footprint.

The year-long inquiry, which is chaired by government MP Sussan Ley, quietly published its 210-page opus in the shadows of the upcoming Labour Day long weekend. (pdf)

The findings of the inquiry paint an incredibly damaging picture of the national broadband network.

However, it was unclear how many - if any - of the 23 detailed recommendations would ever be put into practice.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/nbn-inquiry-joint-committee-recommends-shift-to-fibre/news-story/d4fe774929b331be672eb8cc4818b644

NBN inquiry: joint committee recommends shift to fibre

• The Australian
• 4:58PM September 29, 2017

David Swan

A joint federal inquiry into the National Broadband Network has called for an overhaul of the project, recommending the rollout shift to using as much fibre as possible.

The joint standing committee, chaired by government MP Sussan Ley, made 23 recommendations most notably that NBN abandon its current mixed technology rollout plan in favour of a “minimum” of fibre-to-the-curb (FTTC).

Labor’s original NBN plan would have connected every property with fibre to the premise but the Abbott and Turnbull governments nixed that in favour of a multi-technology mix, which the government admits is slower but says is cheaper and faster to roll out.

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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/alan-kohler/nbn-report-a-waste-of-time/news-story/bf0d6fb2f3ce7d5b9d61054d1af3f976

NBN report a waste of time

The parliamentary report was full of shocking anecdotes about the NBN rollout.

• The Australian
• 7:25AM October 2, 2017

Alan Kohler

What a complete waste of time the parliamentary joint standing committee on the NBN’s first review of Australia’s largest, most important infrastructure project has been.

In fact, the committee itself is a complete waste of time and space.

There were 191 submissions and 15 days of public hearings; they all should have held their breath and stayed at home — using their mobiles.

The majority report, signed by 12 ALP and minor party MPs, concluded that the NBN was a dreadful mess and made 23 recommendations to improve it.

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https://theconversation.com/when-it-comes-to-the-nbn-we-keep-having-the-same-conversations-over-and-over-85078

When it comes to the NBN, we keep having the same conversations over and over

October 4, 2017 5.36pm AEDT

Author David Glance

Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, University of Western Australia

The Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network (NBN) released its first report on Friday, just as most people on the east coast of Australia headed into a long weekend, complete with two sporting grand finals.

The release on a Friday afternoon, sometimes referred to by the media as the “Friday news dump”, is generally what governments do when they want the published report to gather dust.

In fact, its hundreds of pages actually included two reports from the one committee. The dissenting report, supported by its Liberal Party members, including the committee’s chair Sussan Ley, contradict many of the conclusions of the first, which was backed by the Labor Party members and Australian Greens, among others.

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http://www.theage.com.au/business/innovation/life-in-the-slow-lane-australia-has-slower-internet-than-kenya-20171003-gytril.html

Life in the slow lane: Australia has slower internet than Kenya

Angus Whitley

Published: October 4 2017 - 4:13PM

The $49 billion National Broadband Network was meant to spearhead a digital revolution. Instead, the botched project risks becoming a poster child for government mismanagement.

Australia's biggest-ever infrastructure investment has turned into a political football, plagued by cost overruns and construction delays.

With the network years behind the original schedule and only about half finished, Australia has slumped to 50th place on a global ladder of internet speeds, behind Kenya and a string of former Soviet bloc nations.

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https://www.itwire.com/telecoms-and-nbn/80212-even-govt-mps-are-now-criticising-nbn,-says-labor.html

Even govt MPs are now criticising NBN, says Labor

• 05 October 2017
• Written by  Sam Varghese

The Labor Party's communications spokesperson Michelle Rowland has taken aim at Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over the national broadband network rollout, pointing out that criticism of the network is now coming from his own side of politics.

Rowland pointed to statements made by Nationals Mallee MP Andrew Broad and former Liberal MP Fiona Scott, both of which were critical of the policy adopted by the government for the NBN rollout and followed by the NBN Co.

Broad, the lone Nationals MP on the joint standing committee on the National Broadband Network, gave an interview to The Guardian Australia in which he was fairly scathing about the rollout.

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Enjoy!

David.