IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The rollout of a nationwide electronic health identifier system would reduce errors caused by uninformed doctors giving patients the wrong drugs, an analysis by US management consultancy Booz and Company has found.

During collaborative partnership talks in Canberra, PSA and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) reaffirmed that electronic prescribing of medications could provide substantial benefits to consumers through better medication management and reduced medication errors.

Mandated to deliver a single Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) security solution for the health sector, HeSA has endured trenchant criticism from a resistant medical lobby. It has seen its certification vendor change hands from Baltimore, to SecureNet to Betrusted. At the same time applications vendors have proved more than a little slow to develop software to deliver the federal government's grand vision of e-Health.

After it was clear their previous $4.7 billion broadband plan was a dismal failure, it was reported Kevin Rudd and the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, dreamt up this $43 billion plan while on two flights between Sydney and Canberra in April.

General Manager of Digital and Contact Centres with the Agency, Brady Jacobsen said Australia Post was one of the first Australian organisations to reveal its app for the new phone.

Mr Jacobsen said the new app would allow customers to search for a postcode and find out how much it would cost to send a mail item within Australia or overseas.

To be announced by Premier Geoff Gallop tomorrow, the E-government Strategy for the Western Australian Public Sector will outline plans to move to widespread electronic service delivery by 2010.

If there is one area where the benefits of technology reach their utmost potential in society, it is hard to argue against e-health. It has long been an area of exciting innovation and promise. It has also been chronically underfunded. But with healthcare reform at the forefront of the national agenda, the possibilities for an integrated approach to e-health makes the area rife with challenge and opportunity.

Health IT blogger David More said as an ex-opposition health spokeswoman, Ms Gillard is aware e-health was a crucial issue.

"She does know that e-health is important and having been opposition health spokesman (she) knows how hard Tony Abbott found it to make any progress.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced four additional winning projects as part of the government's Digital Regions Initiative.

In a statement the Federal Government said it will spend $1.79 million on new medical record, administration and e-learning systems at 190 ambulance stations across New South Wales while the South Australian Digital Telehealth Network will receive $2.48 million to enhance its in-patient care and distance consultation services including 24 hour triage and liaison services.

They say the proposed identifier system will enable linkage of personally identifiable information across multiple networks, it is based on old technology, and designed to support a nationwide e-health records system that may never be built.

People concerned about the privacy implications of a move to transferable electronic health and medical records should not be dissuaded by doubt as the benefits outweigh potential drawbacks, according to health industry executives.

Dr Tim Smyth, deputy director-general of NSW Health, said it is very interesting times in NSW as the state is “beavering on” with the rollout of electronic medical records and is undertaking a business case for the provision of an electronic prescribing service.

The Government-owned corporation is secretly testing the Big Brother technology at 25 outlets after its directors approved funding for the project at a March board meeting.

With just one parliamentary sitting week left to get the Bill through the Senate before 1 July, Australian Privacy Foundation's chair of the health sub committee Dr Juanita Fernando said the lack of communication surrounding the planned implementation was a cause for concern.

In a submission to the Senate Committee on the Healthcare identifiers Bill 2010, the Commissioner, Helen Versey said the Bill was “somewhat artificial and limited” as it dealt with arrangements around the healthcare identifiers but did not discuss broader privacy issues concerning e-health.

The survey of 2700 people conducted by UMR Research found that 9 of 10 respondents in all states want the Commonwealth to manage the deployment and operation of an e-health record system. The same proportion supported the introduction of new privacy laws to increase protection of personal medical information.

According to IDC Government Insights public sector organisations in the Asia Pacific region faced renewed financial pressures because of the global financial crisis and an increased demand for service delivery.

The report Looking Ahead: Articulating Cloud Competencies for the Asia/Pacific Public Sector highlights trends and concerns regarding the adoption of cloud computing in the public sector.

Recent experience is showing us that investing in an ICT initiative is one of the highest risk activities the public sector could be involved with. It is surely the case when headlines like ‘millions wasted’, ‘years late’, and ‘minister resigns’ becomes the public’s corporate memory of a complex ICT project. So why does the public sector keep looking for ‘silver bullet’ ICT solutions when the available evidence shows continued under-performance, under-scoping and under-estimation of complexity and risk?

The answer may lie in the way we humans think when we are faced with risk, adversity, ambiguity and complexity. In those circumstances we tend to rely on hope, more than evidence. And if we are senior and powerful, we also tend to believe that somehow, through sheer force of will, we can change the risk environment to suit our wishes.

The federal government survey is the first of its kind to cover e-government at federal, state and local levels.

A four-person delegation led by Information and Communications Technology Minister Robert Schwarten visited Seattle, San Francisco, Texas and Toronto and met representatives from tech heavyweights Dell, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Google.

The trip was to assist the design and implementation of the Technology Transformation Project, aimed at consolidating storage and network services across state government departments.