NEHTA Attempts To Explain Why Clinicians Are Bailing Out. E-Mail To Staff Has More Spin Than A Top.

Here is what NEHTA’s Staff were told this morning.

Dear Colleagues,

This announcement is to inform you that Dr Mukesh Haikerwal AO will soon be stepping aside from the role of National eHealth Clinical Lead and Head of Clinical Leadership and Stakeholder Management with NEHTA.

I would like to acknowledge the tremendous expertise that Dr Haikerwal has contributed to eHealth in Australia. For many years he has been a tireless advocate to turn the eHealth vision into reality, with the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record system now being well established and moving into a new phase. Dr Haikerwal will no doubt continue to advocate for the transformative ability of technology to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes for all Australians, and indeed worldwide in his role as Chair of the World Medical Association.

Over the past months, Dr Haikerwal and I have been in discussions with the Department of Health and Ageing about the way NEHTA and governments engage with healthcare providers, peak bodies, consumers, vendors and other key stakeholders who are playing a role in transforming healthcare delivery through eHealth.

This discussion aligns with NEHTA’s shift in focus from designing and building national eHealth infrastructure to implementing and supporting adoption of eHealth. As we are reaching the conclusion of these discussions, Dr Haikerwal has advised me that he sees this as the right time for him to step aside from the leadership role with NEHTA he has held for the past six years.

Mukesh brought to NEHTA the advocacy for a clinically led national eHealth programme and built a strong network of clinical leads who are experts across the entire Australian clinical landscape. This network, together with the internal Clinical Unit Mukesh developed, were successful in embedding clinical perspectives and needs into the design of NEHTA specifications which directly support the uptake of eHealth systems which are being implemented today. It is this tireless effort in the years of design which has provided a solid foundation for years to come. Mukesh will officially finish at NEHTA on 22 August.

On behalf of NEHTA, I wish Mukesh the very best in his future endeavours and look forward to continuing our dialogue on eHealth in the future.

The Executive team are meeting next Wednesday to discuss changes to NEHTA’s structure that arise from Mukesh’s departure and other recent changes. I anticipate these changes will be finalised and communicated shortly thereafter.

Regards

Peter.

----- End E-mail.

What wonderful spin.  It is utterly obvious the PCEHR is just not fit for its intended purpose, and is conceptually a disaster.

It is clear that Mukesh and a number of other senior clinicians have become utterly frustrated with the total lack of responsiveness to clinical input and requirements, and are now realising there are some fundamental and almost impossible to fix flaws in the current NEHTA designed PCEHR.

Some other good people have also left as well I am told.

Shows just how wrong DoHA and NEHTA are getting all this in my view.

David.