This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.
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."
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
Still lots of digesting of the now over 100 Submissions to the Senate myHR Inquiry and all sorts of issues in a few State systems.
"Risks not taken seriously enough": Scathing audit of WA Health’s digital patient record system reveals concerns
Lynne Minion | 26 Sep 2018
WA Health’s management of its electronic medical record system has received a scathing appraisal by the state’s Auditor General, with data security vulnerabilities, storage gluts and clinical staff manually working around the digital system among the problems identified.
The Information Systems Audit Report 2018 assessed key business applications at five West Australian government agencies, including the patient medical record system at the Department of Health, and found management was to blame for a litany issues.
“Common weaknesses across all our information systems audits indicate agencies are not taking risks to information systems seriously enough. Most of the issues raised can be easily addressed and it appears that risks are simply not properly understood. They are certainly not being effectively managed.”
SA Health review: EPAS must be overhauled or scrapped
Adam Langenberg, Political reporter, The Advertiser
September 26, 2018 6:56pm
Subscriber only
THE health system’s trouble-plagued electronic patient record system will be overhauled or scrapped altogether, after an SA Health review “confirmed” concerns about its operation.
Three health experts will determine if issues with the electronic patient administration system (EPAS) can be “addressed adequately” after a review found it couldn’t proceed in its current form.
SA Health chief executive Chris McGowan said the panel would also consider whether the problems were so significant that EPAS needs to be scrapped entirely.
Extra funds aren't turning around sick EPAS patient admin system.
South Australia’s troubled electronic patient administration system (EPAS) is set to be overhauled or discontinued altogether after an independent review confirmed longstanding concerns with the rollout.
In an update on the review into the system that kicked off in June, SA Health revealed that continuing the current implementation approach had been “ruled out” by the review panel.
Chief executive Chris McGowan said the review's diagnostic phase had confirmed concerns with the rollout of the system, which remains accessible by only 25 percent of the state's hospital beds.
EPAS: SA clinicians welcome decision to scrap current system, but wary of costs
Adam Langenberg, Political reporter, The Advertiser
September 27, 2018 11:09pm
SOUTH Australia must avoid another health budget black hole as a result of overhauling the state’s trouble-plagued electronic patient record system, a medical union says.
SA Salaried Medical Officers Association president Laura Willington supported an overhaul of the “clunky” electronic patient assessment system (EPAS), but questioned how it could be done without a significant funding injection.
“The issue (with EPAS) is there’s so much that needs to be overhauled and there’s already been so much money spent on it,” Dr Willington said. “At some point, you’ve got to stop spending good money after bad.”
Telstra Health is set to lose $50 million of its $220m government contract to build and operate a national cancer screening register because the project is running two years behind and has to be supported by public servants.
When the federal government controversially outsourced the new register in 2016, the telco’s health arm was expected to have it ready the following year. Telstra Health was to pull together nine cancer-screening registers, giving patients a single record.
However, the project has been beset by delays. The cervical cancer component, due to start in May last year, came online only at the end of June this year. That delayed work on the bowel cancer component, which is not likely to be ready until the end of next year.
Microsoft has launched a program aimed at leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to aid humanitarian causes.
AI for Humanitarian Action is the third program in the company’s US$115 million AI for Good initiative to launch over the past 18 months.
Frank X. Shaw, the company’s corporate vice president, communications, told a media briefing that new $40 million, five-year AI for Humanitarian Action program is aimed at harnessing the power of AI in four areas: Disaster response, the needs of children, refugees and displaced people, and promoting human rights.
“We’ll do this by working with specific NGOs and humanitarian organisations through financial grants, technology investments, and partnerships that combine our AI and data science know-how with these groups’ core expertise,” Shaw said.
Ten-year desktop deal not delivering on savings, jobs ... or anything, really.
The South Australian government’s desktop outsourcing deal has blown out by almost $50 million and faces the prospect of further exceeding its budget.
The consumption-based managed service arrangement with IT services company DXC – formerly CSC – was signed early last year by the former Weatherill Labor government.
The news that the RACGP had struck a deal to “support” a previously unknown, foreign software vendor, Hello Health, to build a completely new patient management system (PMS) for Australian GPs, sounded initially like fake news.
Certainly, Australian GPs are constantly wanting more out of their PMS software vendors, and it would be rare for you to find a GP that didn’t have some issue with their PMS. But the market is already served by about seven local vendors. It is highly competitive, evolving fast with new mobile and cloud players and dominated by two very longstanding and well-respected brands, Best Practice and MedicalDirector.
Between MedicalDirector and Best Practice, the amount of money spent on sponsoring and supporting the RACGP through events, publications and advertising over their collective 25 years in the market would be into the several hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, in a sense, the industry has supported the RACGP and its members in more ways than just supplying their key technology over the years.
