It seems there is a political need for Minister Coonan to be a little flexible with the truth. This is something you can’t quite get away with when reporting to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).
Today we have the following release and have a better outline of what is planned:
ASX / MEDIA ANNOUNCEMENT
WSS e-health software in pioneering Chronic Disease Management Network Broadband Based Service Aims to Transform the Treatment of Chronic Disease
Melbourne, Victoria – 26 July 2007: Working Systems Solutions (ASX:WSS), today announced that their e-health connectivity and consumer products will be a key component of a pioneering Chronic Disease Management Network project (CDM-Net) across the Barwon region in Victoria.
The $8.7 million CDM-Net is being led by Precedence Health Care in collaboration with Barwon Health.
The Australian Government is contributing $2 million under the Clever Networks Program and the Victorian Government a further $2 million through the Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development, the Department of Human Services, and Multi Media Victoria.
CDM-Net involves a consortium of leading industry and health care organizations, including Barwon Health, Cisco Systems, IBM, Intel, Working Systems Solutions, Diabetes Australia Victoria and the GP Association of Geelong. Research and evaluation of CDM-Net will be carried out by Monash, Deakin and Victoria Universities with the assistance of CSIRO’s ehealth Research Centre. CDM-Net will be developed for use in the Barwon South Western Region of Victoria, reaching from Geelong to the South Australia border.
Precedence Health Care CEO, Professor Michael Georgeff said, “By helping doctors plan, track and intensively manage the care of people with diabetes, the evidence indicates that we may be able to reduce hospital admissions and other adverse events by more than 50%. CDM-Net will do this by using the Internet to connect and share information across a patient’s entire care team, including doctors, specialists, hospitals, and other care providers. It will continuously monitor health parameters of patients, such as blood glucose levels and medications, helping them to adhere to their care plans by sending them reminders and alerts.”
The Minister of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan in her announcement of the Australian Government grant said, “Chronic illness requires close monitoring and ongoing management across an entire team of care professionals.
“People suffering from chronic disease need to be provided with a care plan, detailing medications, treatments, tests, and referrals tailored to their specific circumstances, and CDM-Net will facilitate that. The project will support the roll out of chronic disease management applications in urban, regional, remote and rural Australia while fostering Australian information communication technology innovation.
”Senator Coonan said a key concept behind the solution is an “open” network of services. “This allows different organisations, including private sector organisations, to ’plug in’ to the network.
“CDM-Net will be initially implemented in the Barwon South Western Region of Victoria, however it has the potential to be rolled out across other regions of Victoria and nationally,” Senator Coonan said.
WSS CEO, Mathew Cherian said, “Our e-health portfolio will contribute many of the key software infrastructure components that CDM-Net will assemble and build on.
“The underlying open connectivity, SMS reminders, secure referral messaging and workflow management have all been proven in a variety of projects using our e-switch software platform. Similarly, our shared care Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software for diabetes (betterdiabetes.com) and Mental Health (MHAGIC) are recognised as world-class solutions.
“CDM-Net is a significant project for WSS representing an opportunity to bring our proven ehealth capabilities and credentials together in a world class private-public sector joint initiative to deliver better health outcomes for consumers.”
So what is different?
1. We now have an apparently $8.7 Million project.
2. We now have a range of partners so wide they will trip over each other. There are also a good few with a substantial profit motive.
3. We have a proprietary commercial software provider doing the hard work – the openness of all this is yet to be proven if it actually exists.
4. The project almost replicates the old HealthConnect Diabetes Care trials – South Brisbane as I recall – openEHR and all that – never evaluated that I have seen.
5. The Ministerial Press Release simply did not describe what is planned.
Will all this actually work and make a difference – I doubt it – but many people will have a satisfying cash infusion.
There are many examples of such diabetes related projects overseas that have worked so it is unclear just why a trial is even necessary – but so many get some payoff if one is conducted!
This report from iHealthBeat must raise some concerns:
July 19, 2007
Report: IT Useful in Managing Diabetes, but Cost is a Concern
Providers can use IT to help manage patients with type 2 diabetes, but costs outweigh the savings for many of the technologies, according to a new report from the Center for Information Technology Leadership, Health Data Management reports.
However, the use of electronic diabetes registries and clinical decision-support software are the exceptions, according to the report, called "The Value of Information Technology-Enabled Diabetes Management." Researchers estimate that use of diabetes registries could save $14.5 billion in health care expenditures over 10 years and that clinical decision support software could save $10.6 billion over the same period.
….. (see the rest at the iHealthBeat site)
I hope those running the trial have actually read the available evidence and it’s a bit sad Ministerial press releases do not actually explain what is going on.
Thank heavens we have the ASX to provide at least one version of the truth! Note we still have no idea if Precedence Health Care has any capability to deliver given DoHA seemed not to and this trial is hardly a test of open network services given the proprietary solution (standards compliant though it may be – or plan to be) involved.
A question – does anyone know if Presence Health Care is more than a shell company? Public information is not that easy to find – and should be given the part the Commonwealth and Vic Health are playing!
Disclaimer (Sensibly, I think, I do hold a few shares in Working Systems – may they prosper in all this for my pension fund! Sadly I don’t think it moves Australian e-Health ahead much given it has all been done before.)
Even with the extra information provided this trial has all the feel of another one of those strategically unfocused and unaligned projects from which little, if any good, will result. It could only happen in the current national e-health strategic vacuum where AHIC, DoHA and NEHTA are essentially asleep at the wheel.
Note: because this is breaking news the link to my full BCG Submission will go up next week!
David.
ps. It's amazing how some comment can suddenly cause an "under - construction" web site to develop a huge page of logos. I hope all those organisations are comfortable with that!
D.
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