IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The NSW Government has committed $7.5 million to help set up a new broadband centre tasked with researching future applications to run on the National Broadband Network.

The Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation concept was announced in Sydney's north-west today.

According to a job advertisement released today in the Australian Financial Review, the leadership position has been created for a new NSW Health branch created to take advantage of the national e-health roll-out. The director will be required to develop strategies to engage clinicians to support the implementation of e-health strategies.

The Federal Government has pledged $466.7 million for e-health programs over the next two years.

Although nothing is confirmed, the chair of the state's NBN Taskforce Peter Duncan said today that the Government has looked at Department of Housing units "as an area we can trial" the retrofit of fibre to housing unit blocks that currently have ADSL infrastructure.

ServiceFirst's website states it has about 540 staff providing services, including technology offerings, to about 80 agencies within the government. It was created without fanfare over the past few months from the previous CCSU, CSS and Department of Commerce Shared Services branches.

The centre will receive $7.5 million in funding from the NSW Government over the next three years, and has received matching in-kind support from the CSIRO and NICTA. The centre will employ 20 people at the Marsfield location from 2011.

The centre is located at the CSIRO's Marsfield campus, and at the launch CSIRO group executive for information sciences Dr Alex Zelinsky noted some of the achievements at the location.

The Minister for Health, John Della Bosca, said the $100 million project to digitise 250 hospitals will save money by eliminating duplicate diagnostic tests and imaging. It will also improve patient safety by alerting staff to a deteriorating patient and reduce the likelihood of errors.

The department is seeking a statewide central storage and retrieval facility to support its picture archiving and communications systems and its radiology information management systems.

The tender is due to close next week.

The new SkyConnect network will aim to redress the broadband deficiencies suffered by communities and homesteads across the Territory which lack effective terrestrial connections.

The National E-Health Transition Authority yesterday released an advisory on a method of mapping Object Identifiers (OIDs) used in HL7 v3 systems to the federal Government's proposed 16-digit identifiers for individual patients, medical providers and healthcare organisations.

Royal Darwin Hospital has developed Australia's first online medication management system where bedside laptops replace handwritten patient records.

"The government will soon make an announcement on where in Australia patients will be first to have access to PCEHRs," she said yesterday.

"This is an exciting next step as the Gillard Labor government builds the health system we need for the future."

Open source software could provide a model for better e-health collaboration, but should not be seen as a panacea for addressing the interoperability challenges in healthcare, according to a leading healthcare industry CIO.

Malcolm Thatcher, CIO of Queensland-based Mater Hospital, said there are two issues to consider around the need for interoperability amongst Australian healthcare providers.

In early February Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon introduced legislation into Federal Parliament that would introduce a National Health Identifier to be implemented by the middle of 2010.

The move has raised concerns, with overseas student educators calling for it to be handled sensitively to ensure negative attitudes to Australia as a study destination are not compounded by the initiative.

The Immigration Department last week confirmed that biometrics would be extended from detainees and asylum-seekers to most types of offshore visa applications, including student visas.

Titled Australia's Digital Economy: Future Directions, it examines key areas of focus for Government, industry and the community in promoting Australia's success in the digital economy.

The paper features case studies of 12 Australians who have successfully engaged with the digital economy.

And the new rules could shut down existing e-health programs such as shared care for patients with chronic diseases, clinical trials, secure messaging services and e-prescribing because software and third-party service providers would not be treated as eligible organisations.

This is a despite a Rudd Government promise the new "e-health" system would be on an opt-in basis.

You can opt not to have a tax file number but a spokeswoman for Health Minister Nicola Roxon yesterday confirmed you will not be able to opt out of the new health identity system.

Industry pundits from Australian health services joined representatives from the UK National Health Service (NHS) and the Singapore Ministry of Health at the CeBIT 2010 conference in Sydney today in proposing the Federal Government should engage consumers before deploying its e-health initiative.

The move comes on the back of a national report that shows state and federal governments have wasted $5billion of investment in electronic health systems.

Up to 18 per cent of medical errors in Australia could be blamed on the poor quality of health system information.