This appeared in 6minuites today.
Doctors to pay for e-health upgrades
by Jared Reed
Nicola Roxon says doctors rather than the government will foot the bill for upgrading IT systems during the move towards an integrated national e-health system.
The minister toured the offices of Medicare in Canberra yesterday to look at the various tools that will be encompassed in e-health legislation the government plans to introduce soon.
Ms Roxon says she expects health providers, not the government, to fund the majority of its e-health agenda.
“We believe there's good reasons that healthcare providers and businesses and professionals can pay to upgrade their systems,” she said yesterday.
The government will adopt a more hands-off approach in the execution of e-health, acting instead as an overseer and intermediary between providers, she added.
“This isn’t an entire government enterprise. It’s about government using its role to link the different providers at appropriate times for the benefit of the patient.”
More here:
http://www.6minutes.com.au/articles/z1/view.asp?id=509538
What on earth is she smoking? There is no reason for Doctors to do anything of the sort that I can see, other than those few who operate with a (very deep) sense of altruism or those who are technogeeks and love playing with the blinking lights.
Nowhere else in the world has it been seen to be reasonable to pay for technology upgrades which, after all, typically require time, effort and cost to install and once operational provide the majority of the benefits of the use of the technology to the patient and those who fund the health services.
Technology Introduction 101 is quite clear – those who benefit are those who should pay!
Unless the migration to e-Health is made cost neutral for the health-care providers you can have a rolled gold 100% guarantee progress will be glacial at best!
I wonder just what the good reasons are she has for her "provider to pay" plan. Funny there is no explanation provided. The reason is, of course, that no rational justification exists - as the rest of the world knows!
Just arrant nonsense. I have never seen such silliness from a Minister of the Crown in all my now rather too many adult years!
David.
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