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This weekly blog is to explore the news around the larger issues around Digital Health, data security, data privacy, AI / ML. technology, social media and related matters.
I will also try to highlight ADHA Propaganda when I come upon it.
Just so we keep count, the latest Notes from the ADHA Board were dated 6 December, 2018 and we have seen none since! It’s pretty sad!
Note: Appearance here is not to suggest I see any credibility or value in what follows. I will leave it to the reader to decide what is worthwhile and what is not! The point is to let people know what is being said / published that I have come upon.
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Putting people at the heart of healthcare | Sponsor update by Orion Health
Apr 26, 2022 | Member news
This is a sponsored post by Orion Health
Orion Health is an award-winning, global healthcare technology company and one of the world’s foremost providers of healthcare software solutions. With over 30 years of experience focused on healthcare, Orion Health is the world leader in population health. The vision is to revolutionise global healthcare so that every individual receives the perfect care for them.
Orion Health was founded 30 years ago and is headquartered in Auckland, with 13 offices worldwide, customers in 15 countries, servicing 12 US states, seven Canadian provinces and 56 percent of UK NHS regions.
Orion Health develops and supports a range of healthcare software solutions for government and privately owned healthcare providers and insurers. Its population health management, patient engagement and precision medicine solutions enable clinicians to deliver the right care to the right patient at the right time, and protect the precious medical records of over 120 million patients worldwide.
Population health for Orion Health isn’t about seeing people as statistics. Real population health needs a health navigation tool, a health data platform, and the power to predict care needs through data science. Only Orion Health has the capability to do all three.
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https://digitalhealth.org.au/blog/revised-competency-framework-to-support-digital-health-careers/
Revised competency framework to support digital health careers
Digital health and health informatics professionals will have their expertise assessed and certified against a revised set of competencies as healthcare delivery continues to change and evolve in a digital society.
The Australasian Institute of Digital Health has released the 2nd edition of the Australian Health Informatics Competency Framework, to support organisations and professionals in their digital health skills and career development.
AIDH CEO Dr Louise Schaper commended the Certified Health Informatician Australasia (CHIA) Examination Committee, members and other volunteers who had worked tirelessly to develop the world-class competency framework which would underpin professional development in digital health.
Dr Schaper said more than 200 professionals across the Australasian health sector were consulted as part of the competency review process to refine the original 2013 framework.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/practice/why-exactly-did-covidsafe-app-flop-so-badly
Why, exactly, did the COVIDSafe app flop so badly?
A NSW Health-led study found a few reasons
29th April 2022
COVIDSafe app … It feels like we’ve not heard that name for some time now.
It was only two years ago that the Australian Government launched its automated contact tracing smartphone app, to a lot of fanfare and promises about re-opening pubs.
It was meant to use Bluetooth to identify when two people with the app spent more than 15 minutes within 1.5m of each other.
Consensus quickly arrived that it was a dud.
But exactly what went wrong has been hard to pin down.
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Is artificial intelligence a friend or foe? Or is that a question for Siri?
Humans are ill-prepared for how much artificial intelligence will reshape our lives, says Toby Walsh, a world-respected professor of AI at the University of NSW. But among the dire warnings, there is some good news.
April 29, 2022
Every time we ask Siri a question on our iPhones, we’re using artificial intelligence, of course, but in what other ways will it infiltrate our lives?
AI already goes beyond just Siri or Alexa. Every time you get directions from Google Maps, it’s AI that’s working out the shortest path from A to B. When you get a film recommendation on Netflix, it’s AI that knows about people’s preferences and a little too much about you. More than three-quarters of the movies watched on Netflix are those the algorithms choose for us. And we’re spending more and more time locked away in digital and virtual realities. If [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg is right, we’ll all be enjoying the metaverse very soon. And there’s a distinct possibility we’ll find these artificial realities more attractive than the real physical world. That’s something to worry about right now.
Are the applications of AI virtually limitless?
It’s hard to imagine a part of our lives that won’t be touched by AI. Hal Varian, chief economist at Google, has a good way to predict the future: simply look at what rich people have today. Rich people have chauffeurs. And in the future, AI will give us autonomous cars that drive us everywhere. Rich people have personal bankers that manage their money. And soon, we’ll all have robo-bankers that manage our more modest assets.
Of course, there are also ways AI will infiltrate our lives that won’t be so good. AI might be used in our workplace to decide who gets promoted, in our courts to decide sentencing. We need to make some important choices about putting limits on AI.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/has-gp-patient-enrolment-become-latest-dead-parrot-reform
Has GP patient enrolment become the latest dead parrot reform?
AusDoc speaks to one of its architects, Dr Steve Hambleton
29th April 2022
After what he has been through, you would expect Dr Steve Hambleton to have cracked by now.
He has been making that long revolutionary march to GP health reform.
But you begin to wonder, after having travelled so far and got so close, will he be foiled by the new world that comes after the federal election.
The Brisbane GP and former AMA president was the co-chair of the advisory group to the Primary Health Care 10 Year Plan.
If you want to know why voluntary patient enrolment is meant to be a big change coming in general practice, it is partly to do with him.
But although it is now official Federal Government policy after years of policy chin-wagging, its details, its funding and its timeline for being made a reality have suddenly become disturbingly abstract once more.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/the-problem-with-phns-as-masters-of-the-dataverse/68150
29 April 2022
The problem with PHNs as masters of the dataverse
They aspire to be the overlords of population (that is, your patients’) data, but they aren’t qualified, organised or well governed enough.
Not many GPs have a great idea of what happens to their patient data once it gets sucked out of their system by a Pen CS or equivalent software data extraction tool, in what manner it is sucked, and even what is actually sucked out.
It wasn’t long ago that one GP practice in Victoria worked out that, having agreed to have its data sucked away for the purpose of chasing a PIP quality improvement (QI) incentive payment, which required just a few key data fields, that every single field on every patient was taken by the data extractor.
It turned out that this was happening with a lot of practices at the time.
Most practices around the country were lured into this eclectic manner of patient data sharing by the PIP QI payment scheme, which was launched in a hurry and without any formal framework for data governance (that got published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare only last year, amid the covid mayhem).
We sort of just fell into the whole PIP QI program without really thinking at all about issues of data governance, audit, reporting and management.
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Are we entering a dark phase for Big Tech?
By Shira Ovide
April 29, 2022 — 7.07am
We are in an odd moment for technology. Can you feel it? The powerful forces of unstoppable change and tech wealth are rolling along, but mixed in there is a shred of something else: doubt.
Some of the digital age’s titans, including Netflix and Facebook, are simultaneously ubiquitous, disruptive digital supernovas and tarnished stars careening into existential growth challenges.
The war in Ukraine, governments’ efforts to restrain rising consumer prices, and the unsettled economic and social effects of the pandemic have put a pause on some digital advertising and tech purchases. Money pros who bet on the promise of young tech companies are losing some faith.
In one sign of worry from investors, a half-dozen tech giants — Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Netflix — have collectively lost $US1.3 trillion ($1.8 trillion) of market value this year. (Facebook’s soaring stock price on Thursday had crawled back only a little from its epic 2022 meltdown.)
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https://digitalhealthcrc.com/news/new-fellowship-to-recognise-digital-health-clinicians
New Fellowship to recognise digital health clinicians
April 28, 2022
Australian clinicians will be professionally recognised as digital health experts in a career-boosting Fellowship program announced today by the Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH) and Digital Health CRC (DHCRC).
As part of a DHCRC project, AIDH will collaborate with Queensland Health, the University of Queensland (UQ), and a range of health and medical colleges to develop the curriculum for the new Clinical Fellowship in Digital Health.
AIDH CEO Dr Louise Schaper said applications for candidacy from healthcare professionals would open later this year.
“The Institute has been working for many years to develop professional career pathways for digital health which will significantly build health workforce capacity,” Dr Schaper said.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=b9ee8dfc-a3be-4e22-84fe-7dcdcc4b19ca
Library of death - The use and potential misuse of AI-assisted drug discovery
Gilbert + Tobin Kritika Rampal and Peter Waters
Australia April 27 2022
The development of chemical and biological weapons seems a somewhat distant idea in 2022; far removed from the development of mustard gas as a result of an experiment gone awry in Berlin in 1913, and later extensively used in the First World War, or the weaponisation of the Brucella bacteria during the Cold War as part of the United States’ biological weapons program. Both of these examples have two common underlying assumptions: the toxins were developed or weaponised by humans following resource-intensive research, and they were developed before the creation of international treaties prohibiting the development and use of biological and toxin weapons.
A team at Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, a small pharmaceutical company based in Raleigh, North Carolina, proved that both of these assumptions are now untrue by demonstrating the capacity of AI to create a veritable ‘library of death’ in a very short space of time, using publicly available information. The findings raise important questions for the use of AI-assisted drug discovery in the future, including whether there is a need for additional regulation to keep up with the pace of technological advancement.
AI as a tool in drug research and development
AI has an increasingly important role in the creation of chemical compounds and new drugs. By automating the trial and error scientific method, and allowing the AI to learn from its mistakes in the same way as humans can, AI-assisted drug discovery and development has the potential to make the process of creating new drugs significantly more time and cost efficient. For instance, a drug designed by UK firm Exscientia using AI and intended to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder was the first AI-designed drug to enter into phase 1 clinical trials, taking 12 months to get to that phase, compared to around five years when compared to conventional techniques that do not use AI.
While the capacity for AI-assisted drug discovery to have a positive impact is evident, Collaboration Pharmaceuticals’ experiment proved that the opposite is also true.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/opinion/real-case-dr-google-i-doff-my-cap-you-solving-mystery
Real case: Dr Google, I doff my cap to you for solving this mystery
GP in Bass Hill, NSW, with a special interest in aged care.
28th April 2022
Sir William Osler, the famous Canadian physician, was right when he advised us to listen to our patients, as they would give us the diagnosis — even before the internet.
However, my patient's first thoughts regarding the extensive rash he presented with on a Monday morning proved to be wide of the mark: “I reckon it’s the boric acid I used to treat the tinea on my feet,” he offered.
“Not so sure about that,” was all I could say, although, at that point, I had no better answer.
Peter had presented with a very pruritic, macular, erythematous rash covering his torso and limbs that had developed over the weekend.
An unusual feature was the flagellate appearance of the rash in some areas, especially on his back and buttocks.
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'Faxed and refaxed': AMA claims poor interaction between GPs and hospitals in Victoria jeopardises patient care
The doctor's group says it is "scarcely believable" that many public hospitals rely on faxes and has urged the state government to act on upgrading communication systems.
By Lynne Minion
April 28, 2022 02:55 AM
The Australian Medical Association has claimed that “chronically poor” communication between general practitioners and hospitals is putting patient safety at risk, and called for the Victorian Government to fix the problem in the state's health system.
In its submission before the state budget to be delivered on Tuesday, the AMA said it is "scarcely believable" that many of Victoria's public hospitals continue to use fax machines, contributing to concerns over quality of care.
"This chronically poor interaction results in significant problems in many areas including safety, equity and access, gaps and duplication. With respect to referrals, it is scarcely believable that many public hospitals continue to rely on facsimile (fax) as a mode of communication. This results in both clinical governance problems (lost referrals, lack of accountability and audit trails) and efficiency issues (hundreds of pages printed, faxed and refaxed)."
The doctors' group recommends the government mandate that "all public hospitals develop a single point of contact to receive electronic referrals sent by GPs" and ensure that "electronic referrals are able to be received directly from GP software".
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https://histalk2.com/2022/04/28/news-4-29-22/
Reader Comments
From Down Underware: “Re: Australian Medical Association. Wants hospitals to eliminate fax machines to improve communication and patient safety.” Banning fax machines would most likely cause communication and patient safety to tank in the absence of solid interoperability. The market will gratefully accept a substitute that checks these boxes and is documented to improve cost and outcomes:
- Faxes are universal. You only need someone’s fax number, not their permission or prearranged terms, to send them something and then walk away.
- They are cheap, easily maintained, and never go down.
- They can be used anywhere there’s a copper telephone wire even in the absence of broadband or cell coverage.
- Issues of sending and reading protocols don’t exist – the piece of paper on one end pops out as piece of paper on the other end that doesn’t need to be printed as an extra step. What is sent is exactly what is received, with no chance of misinterpretation or sender technology changes that render the information unreadable.
- Delivery is immediate and verifiable.
- The recipient is more likely to notice a new paper popping out of the fax machine than an on-screen alert.
- Fax machines don’t host viruses, there’s not much hacking risk, a malicious fax can’t take your network down, and incoming faxes are as secure as the physical location they are sitting in.
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https://www.afr.com/street-talk/medtech-hello-health-in-20m-pre-ipo-round-20220426-p5agc9
Medtech Hello Health in $20m pre-IPO round
Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Apr 28, 2022 – 9.32pm
Singapore-based medically reviewed content business Hello Health is raising $20 million to expand into doctor-patient bookings and digital pharmacies, as it set its sights on an ASX listing next year.
Flyers sent out this month said Hello Health had 35 million monthly active users in 10 Asian countries, who use it to read the educational health content. It also had more than 100 business-to-business customers, primarily large drugmakers like Abbott, Reckitt Benckiser, Pfizer and Novartis, who wanted to reach people in Asian markets.
It said the company was currently making $US0.20 per active user in revenue. It wanted to grow this to 100 million monthly active users and $US10 per active customer, which would mean $US 1 billion in revenue if it were to happen.
Hello Health had a three-pronged plan to hit its 100 million active users target: build better user engagement, facilitate doctor-patient bookings and launch digital pharmacies.
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A guide to My Health Record: for BBV & STI healthcare providers to support their patients
Note .pdf – Dated 2018
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https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/banks-rise-to-the-health-challenge-20220427-p5agfo
Banks rise to the health challenge
Andrew Loveridge
Apr 28, 2022 – 7.00am
This Industry Insight is produced in commercial partnership with NAB.
Without doubt, the COVID pandemic was a game changer for Australia’s medical professionals as more of us realised the enormous impact the health sector has across the entire economy.
Not only does the health sector take the lead in caring for the wellbeing of the nation but it’s also an enormous employer that touches every person’s life.
The knock-on effects of lockdowns and illness were plain to see as nursing homes struggled for staff, hospitals had to delay elective surgery and health professionals such as dentists had to virtually shut down overnight.
The challenges the health sector faced during the pandemic were reflected in the most recent NAB Australian Wellbeing Survey where respondents were asked what was their biggest concern regarding coronavirus outside of its direct impact on personal health.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/telepresence-5-coaching-self-examinations-remotely/67938
27 April 2022
Telepresence 5: coaching self-examinations remotely
By Wendy John
Hands-free diagnosis is harder, but interpersonal skills and smart tech can help, according to new US research.
Physical examinations are hampered by telehealth, but after an extensive literature review, experts have curated the best workarounds to optimise diagnosis.
In this episode of The Tea Room we introduce Telepresence 5 – a guideline for doctors to coach patients through self-examinations via telehealth. We are joined by Professor Stephen W. Russell, physician and researcher from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Professor Russell demonstrates how to talk a patient through a physical self-examination for ailments including shoulder pain and sore throat. He also touches on new virtual care technology in the United States.
You can listen and subscribe to the show by searching for “The Tea Room Medical Republic” in your favourite podcast player.
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YouTube’s algorithms recommending ‘incel’, ‘manosphere’ videos
April 27, 2022 — 5.00am
An Australian internet advocacy group is calling for lawmakers to force social media platforms to share details about their algorithms after its research found YouTube’s recommendation engine is pushing men towards misogynist content.
Reset Australia, which is privately funded and has been backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and mining billionaire Andrew Forrest, conducted a study which it says suggests YouTube is directing male users towards anti-feminist content and trapping some men in far-right internet bubbles it describes as a ‘manosphere’.
The group, which is critical of social media, created 10 accounts on the dominant video sharing service designed to mimic young men and boys aged between 13 and 20.
Eight of the accounts, which were run by analysts from the UK anti-extremist think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, were set up to follow generalist right-wing accounts ranging from United Australia Party leader Craig Kelly to the fringe right-wing extremist Blair Cottrell. Two were left blank.
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Twitter and Elon Musk strike deal for takeover
April 26, 2022
The world’s richest man Elon Musk has pulled off an extraordinary buy-out of Twitter, taking the social media giant private in an against-the-odds, $US44bn ($61bn) deal that will prompt major changes in the platform’s rules.
Less than two weeks after announcing a plan to buy the entirety of Twitter, the favoured social media platform for politicians, journalists and opinion influencers, the company’s board announced it had accepted Mr Musk’s offer unconditionally.
“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders,” said Twitter’s Independent Board Chair in a statement.
The announcement ended speculation about Mr Musk’s bid after the company, whose management and senior staff were reportedly opposed to the sale, enacted a “poison-pill’’ to make it more difficult for Mr Musk to increase his stake.
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Communication rift between GPs and hospitals puts patients ‘at risk’
By Aisha Dow and Melissa Cunningham
April 25, 2022 — 2.57pm
The Australian Medical Association is urging the Victorian government to repair what doctors say is “chronically poor” communication between GPs and hospitals, by establishing a division of general practice within the state’s Health Department.
General practitioners say people are getting rejected for surgical procedures for “arbitrary” reasons, medications are being changed without their knowledge, and in some cases, hospitals are failing to notify GPs when their patients have died, and that the poor or delayed communication is putting patients at risk.
In a submission to the Victorian budget, which is due to be handed down early next month, the doctors’ group is calling for a “division of general practice” to be established.
General practice is typically seen as the purview of the federal government, which partially funds the private sector via Medicare rebates. But doctors have argued the COVID-19 pandemic, an ongoing crisis of delayed care, and increasing numbers of sick patients have highlighted the need for better collaboration between the state and federally funded parts of the health system, including GPs and hospitals run by state governments.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=2026fb4b-1682-413b-a421-2707f699e189
Primary targets - cyber risk in the health, aged care and community sectors
Hall & Wilcox Eden Winokur, Alison Baker and Sam Tempone
Australia April 22 2022
A successful cyber attack can cause devastating damage to commercial businesses, impacting reputations and striking at a company’s bottom line. But what if the target is a hospital, aged care facility or medical centre? The consequences can be catastrophic.
The health and aged care sectors are arguably the primary target for cyber criminals in Australia.
The health and aged care sectors have reported the most notifiable data breaches in Australia for each reporting period since 1 October 2018. In its most recent half-yearly report, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner reported that the health and aged care sectors accounted for 18% of all data breaches (followed by finance at 12%).[1]
Data breaches are no longer the only cyber security concern for health and aged care sector organisations.
The Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) was notified of 166 cyber security incidents (including brute-force attacks, hacking, ransomware and compromised or stolen credentials) relating to the health and aged care sectors between 1 January and 31 December 2020. [2] This marks an 84% increase in incidents compared to those recorded in 2019. [3] In its 2021 report, the ACSC again reported the health and aged care sectors among the highest targeted by cybercriminals.
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Aussies risk everything with ‘she’ll be right’ attitude to their data
Paul Smith Technology editor
Apr 25, 2022 – 11.07am
Despite fearing they could lose their jobs, relationships or even their children if their online behaviour was revealed, most Australians said they had no choice but to run the risk of hacks and data breaches, and share personal data with a myriad of online services to use them, a study has found.
Conducted by YouGov on behalf of cybersecurity company Imperva, roughly 1000 Australians were asked about their attitudes towards data privacy, with most saying they felt trapped into handing over data, and they had lost control of that data online.
During the study, 64 per cent of Australians said they felt as though they did not have a choice but to share their personal data if they wanted to use online services. The number rose to 70 per cent in the 45-54 age group.
Of those polled, 66 per cent said they had no idea how many companies they had shared their personal data with, and 47 per cent said it was impossible to verify the track record of how well the companies they dealt with protected their data because it was shared so widely.
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How are politicians using social media to campaign?
How are digital election campaigns being run? And who do the parties hope to sway?
April 24, 2022
If the election were held on Snapchat, Labor would win. It is the only party, aside from a solitary One Nation candidate, to put up advertisements on the social media platform during this campaign, according to the platform’s political ad library.
The message from Labor’s 15 ads, styled as though they could be an invite to a trendy university party, is aimed straight at the voters aged between 18 and 26 who will see the highly targeted images. “Moved out of home?” one asks. “Don’t forget to update your AEC details online.” Labor’s brand is absent, save for a tiny authorisation as required by electoral law, suggesting it is aiming at young voters who lean left but take a dim view of party politics.
The ads are a fractional part of the election campaign but they point to parties’ determination to win votes online, their willingness to be tricky in the digital arena, and the sophisticated targeting techniques at play.
So, how is the digital campaign being run? And who do the parties hope to sway?
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/bringing-telehealth-from-the-fringe-to-the-centre/67712
25 April 2022
Bringing telehealth from the fringe to the centre
By Jeremy Paton
Here's what needs to happen to turn a stopgap solution into a pillar of the health system.
During the first 10 months of the pandemic, the remote Aboriginal community of Tjuntjuntjara in Western Australia had no access to doctors or allied health professionals.
The state’s closed border with South Australia saw the fly in, fly out medical services from Adelaide the 160 residents had previously relied on grind to a complete halt.
This is where telehealth came in.
With the rollout of digital health services, the community members were able to receive consultations about chronic conditions, preventive activities and mental health issues, ensuring their healthcare continued relatively uninterrupted.
Indeed, the covid pandemic was the catalyst for widespread adoption of telehealth services. Once reserved for rural patients or those with restricted mobility, telehealth has in recent years expanded substantially to deliver essential services when restrictions limited the number of patients allowed on premises.
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https://medicalrepublic.com.au/shut-your-door-to-cyber-attackers/67706
25 April 2022
Shut your door to cyber-attackers
By Ajay Unni
As with your health, when it comes to cyber-security, prevention is always better than cure.
When it comes to cyber-attacks, no sector is safe – not even one as vital as medicine.
In fact, the health sector in Australia reports the second-highest number of cyber-security incidents both overall and for ransomware-related cyber-security incidents.
The sector has faced enormous pressures in responding to the pandemic, and malicious cyber actors have capitalised on this vulnerability. As a result, medical staff have been locked out of patient records, surgeries have been delayed, and patients seeking emergency care have been diverted to other facilities.
This threat only grew as covid vaccines were developed and the Australian health sector started to rely on entities involved in the vaccine supply chain. But despite the serious risks, cyber-security is often pushed to the bottom of the to-do list, always competing with the demands of running a health organisation in a pandemic.
Medical practices hold a huge amount of sensitive personal and medical information about the people under their care and priority needs to be given to the safety and security of that information. So, what’s the solution?
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David.
