Well the journalist who heads NEHTA is back to his roots! I wonder how long it took to craft this article? My spies tell me it was weeks! Desperate to manage the obvious outcomes of a deeply negative report card!
To confirm this just look at the carefully crafted collection of ‘alleged’ e-Health progress items.
Healing Australia via broadband
Jennifer Hewett | December 17, 2007
A health revolution is coming that will allow patients, doctors and specialists to use e-medical records, writes Jennifer Hewett.
IMAGINE going to a new medical specialist and not having to take the referral letter, your X-rays and details of your existing medications.
Imagine attending a new GP practice where the GP calls up your previous medical records at the click of a mouse rather than relying on your, er, memory.
Imagine ending up in the emergency room of a public hospital where doctors who have never seen you before can instantly see your entire medical history. Not to mention having your own GP able to immediately see all the comments from the hospital staff, the discharge papers and the recommendations for follow-up treatment. No waiting, no confusion, no falling between the paper cracks.
Yes the personal electronic health record is finally coming to Australia. The concept is relatively simple. It means individual medical details will be easily and always accessible on computer to both doctors and patients, should patients wish.
But while the appeal is obvious so are the complications, not least the privacy concerns.
For the past 2 1/2 years, a group of health and IT professionals has been quietly beavering away to make the idea workable. They staff the National E-Health Transition Authority, a non-profit company whose board includes all the heads of federal and state health departments, with a budget so far of $160 million.
Now comes the next phase.
Following criticism and an independent review that found NEHTA has not consulted widely enough, the company is now trying to work more closely with the medical profession and other potential users of electronic health records.
This week it will announce it has signed a contract with Medicare Australia to design and build the special identification markers for consumers and healthcare providers.
Although it won't be ready for Kevin Rudd's ambitious timetable for a snap meeting of the Council of Australian Governments on Thursday, NEHTA will put its business case to the first COAG meeting next year for the next stage of funding.
Continue reading the very long article here:
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22935859-24169,00.html
The plan for a Shared EHR ( it was called HealthConnect then) was knocked back by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aging in 2005 and has now been resurrected, as a new idea, (which it is not!), to save those involved in the terrible NEHTA inaction and management of E-Health over the last 3 years.
The Shared EHR may be really good idea but it is much more complex and difficult to achieve than is even partially recognised in this transparent ‘puff piece’
What chance, with the surplus in meltdown, as we now hear, this will get funded now?
I am utterly sick of the spin, deception and rubbish we are seeing from this just totally dysfunctional organisation which as late as a week ago was suggesting to its executives that grass roots E-Health initiatives were to be observed and monitored rather than assisted and supported (and this directive was direct from the CEO I am told).
Sorry..we really need a fresh start with a new team! There is no sign anyone can see there will be the level of change and openness we all require.
I have seen some spin in my time – but this article takes the biscuit! That it was planted to try and minimise the impact of the BCG Report should be obvious to the most naive.
David.
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