Again, in the last week, I have come across a few news items which are worth passing on.
First we have:
Commissioner to probe potential privacy breaches
Karen Dearne | May 21, 2009
FEDERAL Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis has been asked to investigate two potential breaches of privacy laws in relation to the sale or re-use of patient medical records for drug marketing purposes.
Juanita Fernando, chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation's health committee, said recent news reports suggested some doctors were "selling or trading health records" to third parties without patients' knowledge or consent.
The concerns relate to courtroom revelations that pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co paid specialist nurses $500,000 to hunt through patient records for potential candidates for the firm's new anti-arthritis drug Vioxx, now the subject of a class action in the Federal Court in Melbourne, and an unrelated story about AsteRx, a pharmaceutical data aggregator which hopes to gain access to GPs' prescribing data in exchange for a gift of free business software.
More here:
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25517817-5013044,00.html
This is additional information following up the post of last week.
See here:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2009/05/should-doctors-sell-information-derived.html
A very good thing Ms Curtis is having a close look at these issues. I look forward to her report and recommendations.
Second we have:
Patients 'not at risk' in hospital glitch
Posted Thu May 21, 2009 11:00am AEST
The Sydney West Area Health Service says patient lives were not put at risk during a 4.5 hour failure in the electronic medical record systems at western Sydney hospitals yesterday.
A communication tower lost power yesterday morning, which knocked out electronic medical record links at several hospitals in the west, including the Blue Mountains, Blacktown and Nepean.
The area health service says back-up systems came online, but the system at Nepean Hospital failed.
SWAHS Chief Executive Professor Steven Boyages says there were delays for some patients.
More here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/21/2576923.htm
The saga just seems to drag on. Just why is it there are not redundant communication links between major hospitals do you suppose?
Third we have:
GPs will have to wait for patient health Ids
Louise Durack
Hospitals rather than GPs are likely to be those first in line to take advantage of the new national health ID system, an Australian e-health expert says.
Speaking at the RACP annual conference this week, Dr Nick Buckmaster, director of medicine at Gold Coast Health Service, said hospitals and community health centres are those that will “probably see the initial implementation of Unique Healthcare Identifiers as part of a roll-out by the end of this year”.
Aimed to identify people who receive healthcare in Australia and those that provide it, the new system is not expected to be available within GP surgeries for some time, said Dr Buckmaster.
Source:
http://www.6minutes.com.au/PDFRedirectSite.asp?date=22_05_2009.pdf
I wonder who Dr Buckmaster is speaking for here? Could it just be another case of NEHTA’s customers (the State Health Systems) getting the first look in, and all other can wait for the indeterminate future?
Fourth we have:
Logica bags $7m govt health deal
Karen Dearne | May 22, 2009
LOGICA has won a three-year, $7.6 million IT services contract with the National Health and Medical Research Council, as the organisation cuts its technology ties with the federal Health Department.
It's understood the deal involves a complete desktop refresh, including a migration from Windows XP to Vista, as well as the provision of a new secure gateway, data networks infrastructure and web hosting services.
Although the NHMRC became an independent statutory agency in June 2006, the Health Department has been providing its IT supply and support services under an agreement that expires in June.
The new arrangements will allow the agency to finally separate its systems, pushing out departmental providers including IBM.
Full article here (free registration required):
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25521648-15306,00.html
A little peripheral to the main e-Health game – but quality support of the grant management systems is important – so the update seems useful. Moving to Vista seems a little odd however – given Windows 7 is just around corner.
Fifth we have:
Warner touts e-medical data despite hacker attack
BOB LEWIS
May 19, 2009 - 7:55AM
A hacker's theft of millions of Virginia's most sensitive prescription drug records isn't slowing Democratic Sen. Mark Warner's push for electronic medical records.
The former governor convened a conference in Richmond Monday about the medical and cost-saving benefits of digitizing hundreds of millions of patient records nationally.
"We've been talking about this subject, policymakers have, for decades: how can we make sure that we can bring the power of information technology to our health care system," Warner told reporters at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Warner, who made a fortune as an early investor in cell phones and information technology, was among the earliest apostles of e-medical records. The federal economic stimulus package that Warner supported provides nearly $20 billion to begin the process of digitizing medical records and sharing them over secure networks.
Having such data instantly available to doctors anywhere would eliminate the need for expensive tests patients have already had and allow doctors to make smarter, faster treatment decisions, advocates say.
"Every Virginian has been frustrated when you go to the hospital and you get asked exactly the same question 10 different times in the first few hours you're there," Warner said before addressing the conference of several hundred medical professionals, hospital and health care interests and educators.
Much more here:
This was such a spectacular hack I thought it was worth a mention in this section – as clearly the SMH did. The blackmail component and the scale of the theft make this the sort of breach that will be long remembered – much to the annoyance of those who recognise just how rare such events are!
Sixth we have:
NBN panel did not back FttH
Coalition calls for advice papers
Darren Pauli 19 May, 2009 12:44
The coalition has attacked the decision-making process behind the National Broadband Network (NBN) following alleged denials by the government's expert panel that it did not advise on the Fibre-to-the-Home (FttH) upgrade.
Panel member Professor Rod Tucker told an Alcatel-Lucent Sustainable Fibre Nations industry forum yesterday that the panel did not advise the government on investing in FttH technology.
“I just want to make one thing clear: the panel of experts was never asked to and didn’t make any judgement call on the issue of investment for a fibre to the home network,” Tucker said.
While fielding media questions, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the government's NBN upgrade decision was based on: “advice of an expert panel, containing within it the Secretary of the Treasury, expert advice also from the [Australian Competition and Consumer Commission] about this thing being the right way to go”.
More here:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/303711/nbn_panel_did_back_ftth?eid=-6787
Interesting article – but I suspect only part of the story. Whatever is the truth here it would be very interesting to see the detailed business case, if such exists, to see the expectations of the health sector.
Seventh we have:
Rudd sings broadband praise but numbers don't add up
Jennifer Hewett | May 19, 2009
BEYOND dealing with the global financial crisis, nothing beats Kevin Rudd's attachment to high-speed broadband as proof of the Government's reform credentials.
The Prime Minister has even been telling businesspeople that he thinks his $43 billion fibre-to-the-home network will be seen as one of his great legacies to the country.
A national broadband fibre network was an essential part of the successful Rudd campaign strategy. Delivering on a now-vastly expanded and vastly more expensive version remains an article of faith within government.
The Prime Minister has even been telling businesspeople that he thinks his $43 billion fibre-to-the-home network will be seen as one of his great legacies to the country.
Ministers are positively lyrical talking about the productivity benefits and the social and economic revolution that universal access will produce.
Yet how all this will work commercially remains a puzzle to the market.
The trouble is that most analysts just can't make the numbers add up. Take the number of lines, multiply by the $43 billion investment officially required, add in the shift to wireless, divide by those households who will want to take the new service up and at what monthly cost. Hmmm.
This leads some in the market to confidently assert that the Government will realise that the commercial return on investment Canberra insists it wants just isn't realistic. They believe Canberra will just cut its fibre cloth to suit.
Actually, no. Certainly no time soon, anyway. Canberra remains adamant that the whole project will continue as planned with the eight-year time frame providing considerable leeway.
More here:
More evidence that the see the business case would be very valuable in helping make a judgement on all this – and whether it is being approached the right way.
Eighth we have:
An e-health model for Australia?
20 May 2009
CNET has published a long analysis of Google and Microsoft’s efforts at dominating the e-health market in the US. Apparently, the two technology giants, at war on so many fronts, are having a love fest when it comes to e-health.
An excerpt from the article: “‘I love Google Health,’ said Sean Nolan, the chief architect of Microsoft’s HealthVault service. ‘What they are trying to do is a good thing…We are in the same boat. We’re not really fighting with these guys. We’re all trying to make it work.’
“The love, apparently, is mutual. ‘I think it is critically important that there is more than one company trying to do this. (Personal health records) are very hard to get right,’ Google Health product manager Roni Zeiger said. ‘We certainly haven’t done so yet.’”
More here:
http://wellingdigital.com.au/2009/05/20/an-e-health-model-for-australia/
This is a useful set of articles and well worth a browse – recognising it is from the US perspective.
The analysis needs to be considered in the light of my NHHRC submission. See here:
http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2009/05/nhhrc-e-health-submission-due-tomorrow.html
Lastly the slightly more technically orientated article for the week:
How to recover data from a corrupt hard drive
Dave Thompson
May 13, 2009 - 12:19PM
Although all seems lost, there is a chance that data on a corrupt hard drive can be recovered.
Barely a day goes by without someone accosting me and demanding (with menaces) that I divulge everything I know about the black arts of data recovery.
To save me the hassle of explaining that, as an Aikido instructor, I can probably run much faster than they can, I will instead use this forum to share what I know about the subject.
Joking aside, data recovery is a serious and fast-growing global industry; besides the obvious emotional attachment we have with our data, it raises the age-old riddle of what monetary value we put on it.
In the past, data recovery houses have charged pretty much what they liked because people knew so little about it.
Most of us assume that once a drive dies, our data dies with it, although this is only partly true; those in the know can, with equal amounts of skill, good fortune, theatrics and jiggery-pokery, pull the virtual rabbit out of the hat and recover the seemingly unrecoverable.
More here:
The way I see this article it offers two bits of advice. First backup early and often and second if you don’t have recent backups – get professional help if recovery is vital! Backup is by far the best option.
More next week.
David.
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