NEHTA Says AusHealthIT Blog is ‘Out of Touch’.

The following appeared today.

NEHTA rejects criticism of UHI project

Shannon McKenzie - Friday, 5 February 2010

THE National E-Health Transition Authority has defended its Unique Health Identifiers (UHI) project, following the leak of an independent review that raised serious concerns over the project’s management and progress.

The review, conducted by technology consulting firm SMS Technology in March 2009, gave a damning critique of the project, pointing to a lack of project management, a “dysfunctional project team environment” and “a lack of clarity on all aspects of the project”.

The report was leaked to health IT consultant Dr David More, who posted the executive summary on his blog, Australian Health Information Technology.

NEHTA clinical lead Dr Mukesh Haikerwal labelled the blog as “out of touch”.

“The study was done a year ago. We conducted the review, we spotted the problems and we dealt with them... Our UHI project is now ready to be delivered,” he said.

More here (registration required):

http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/News/0,1734,5888,05201002.aspx

Great to hear I am totally disconnected etc.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to answer the following.

1. What is the motivation for any healthcare provider to use the IHI given the time and inconvenience it imposes?

2. How can the HI service start before national registration of healthcare providers is operational and bedded down? Does not even start until July 1, 2010

3. What is the actual implementation plan for the HI Service – why secret 5 months before it begins?

4. Why is ‘spin’ needed to introduce this if it is such a wonderful idea? (see blogs over the last few days)

5. Who is funding the modification of all the software in client systems that is meant to look up the HI Service?

6. When NEHTA folds in a year or two are forward funds committed to support the HI Service? If not what happens next?

7. Just what exactly will be delivered by 1 July 2010 and how many lives do you expect it to save each year once it is operational?

8. Which clinicians have committed to use of the HI Service by July 1, 2010?

I look forward to the answers on all this! Public clarification would be good!

David.