IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

In a speech delivered to a conference in Sydney this week, Telstra's business division head Deena Shiff has called for a review of the basis on which doctors are paid and for the removal of existing barriers blocking the uptake of new technologies such as videoconferencing. Along with related facilities, such as the ability to transmit X-ray or other scan images over fast data connections, these allow patients in rural areas -- or their general practitioners -- to consult medical specialists hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away.

The Australian Government has released a tender for consulting work prior to the roll-out of a personally-controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) system.

Issued as part of the Government's $466.7 million eHealth investment, the Request for Tender for the PCEHR system (RFT 217/1011) was welcomed by the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon.

"The successful tenderer will put in place the analytical and evaluation framework that will underpin the development of e-health records," Roxon said.

"I've actually been pleasantly surprised at a lot of the work that's been done in the background around foundation standards. We're actually starting from a very good position," Fleming told ZDNet.com.au. in an interview last week.

In a statement released yesterday, Health Minister Nicola Roxon outlined the government's "roadmap to reform" in health over the next two years, including the government's plans for an e-health portal. Roxon had previously indicated that she expected the delivery of the online portal that would allow patients access to their e-health records to take around two years, but in her statement yesterday she set a more exact deadline of July 2012.

Released on Wednesday, the report is the latest in a series on e-government. The RTA's registration services were chosen as a case study to highlight important aspects of online service delivery, says the report.

Operational staff across Transport NSW agencies will be moved to a new IT services division during December and January as part of accelerated plans to implement shared services ahead of the state election next year.

The move will be part of a temporary secondment from staff members’ respective home agencies for a nine to 12 month period, during which time the government agency is expected to formulate a more permanent structure for shared services.

Announced last night, the funding will be delivered over two years to establish an opt-in, nationally consistent patient health record system by 2012-2013.

But according to IT consultancy Ovum, $466.7m is either too little or too much to be effective, and the industry is "confused" about what the system will achieve.

Initially, only Medicare would operate a secure website or portal that would allow patients to retrieve their personally controlled electronic health records, she said.

But she left the door open for other service providers, such as health insurance providers, to manage patients' e-health records in future.

NEHTA chief executive Peter Fleming has been given a mandate to create a uniform IT infrastructure, starting with an incremental build-out of existing clinical and communication platforms.

Compiled by a consortium of Dandolopartners, Roy Morgan Research and BDO Consulting on behalf of the Australian Government Information Management Office, the survey of nearly 6000 Australians found usage of e-government services has jumped from 21 percent in 2002 to 39 percent in 2004.

The tender for the first stage of the development, the directory infrastructure - dubbed Project Rosetta - will be advertised tomorrow.

A request for tender (RFT) has been issued by the Department of Infrastructure's MultiMedia Victoria for the project dubbed "Rosetta", which has already seen "a lot" of interest from vendors.

In line with its e-business infrastructure initiative and e-health system overhaul, the Victoria Department of Human Services (DHS) will implement a new data interchange platform to facilitate information sharing between non-government organizations.

The department's business vision for the project is to provide a centralized, reliable, and secure data transfer facility that will enable non-government entities to deliver and receive data with ease and in a timely manner, according to tender documents released this week.

Des Pearson, Auditor-General for Victoria, released a report yesterday assessing the outcome of the state's whole-of-government electronic directory initiative — Project Rosetta — concluding that delays and budget excesses related to the project are symbolic of ongoing problems in government IT.

Australian Defence Force CIO Patrick Hannan has been poached for the role of Victorian CIO. Tony Aitkenhead, former Information Services Branch executive officer at the Victorian Department of Human Services, will take up the CTO position.

State Premier John Brumby announced the plan this week, but Gartner research director Robin Simpson said he wondered how deep Labor's proposal actually went.

"Often these programs sound wonderful on the surface... you've really got to wonder whether this has been thought through," he said.

Australian Defence Force CIO Patrick Hannan has been headhunted for the role of Victorian CIO, while former Victorian Department of Human Services Information Services Branch executive officer Tony Aitkenhead has been appointed CTO.

No other state has either a CTO or a CIO.

Telehealth video conferencing and live telemetrics equipment for trauma and critical will be extended to all 16 regional Victorian hospitals administered under the Loddon Mallee Rural Health Alliance following a successful, 20-month trial across four of the units.

The initial $5.2 million trial was funded under the Federal Government’s $118.6 million Clever Networks initiative and took place from June 2008 across hospitals in Mildura, Swan Hill, Machuka and Bendigo, connected to four metropolitan hospitals in Melbourne. The trial involved the deployment of eight mobile Virtual Trauma and Critical Care Units (ViTCCU) and seven fixed units across the regional hospitals, along with software and smart vitals devices from a consortium of companies including Telstra, Cerner, KPMG and Polycom.