IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The independent technology analyst finds that Australia’s investment in healthcare IT is driven by the need to cut costs in the sector as well as to improve patient outcome. The Australian government is trying to remedy the enormous cost pressures by launching initiatives to adopt the deployment of IT.

Announced by Innovation Minister, Senator Kim Carr, and Senator Kate Lundy, the IT Supplier Advocate will work as a broker and spokesperson, particularly for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in the information technology sector.

The AMA says it could be dangerous if patients were able to hide information about abortions or their use of anti-depressants.

AMA vice-president Steve Hambleton told an e-health conference doctors would not trust the new record if it did not contain all relevant patient information, and there was a risk of serious medical mishaps if information was kept secret.

The Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association (AMA) has called for more than $18 million in funding over four years from the state government to roll out iPads and supporting infrastructure to doctors.

The grant comes as part of $328 million in funding the association has pushed from the Victorian Government across the 2011-2012 financial year and three-year forward estimates as a means of replacing the scrapped HealthSMART initiative and improving patietn safety through ICT infrastructure.

Dr Pesce said that the AMA has long been a supporter of the Government’s e-health agenda but it is time that people started seeing some results.

"The Government should concentrate all its efforts on getting pathology results, diagnostic imaging results, hospital discharge summaries, and medications dispensed information onto an electronic medical record,” Dr Pesce said.

A health-record summary is a quick fact sheet of a patient's health that their GP will create and keep up to date. The health summary is a key element of the government's personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) scheme, which the government is starting from 1 July.

GPs have been concerned about the amount of time it will take to manage the shared e-health summary, and are looking for compensation for the time that they will spend on updating them. At the end of last month, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said that the government will accede to this wish by providing funds to GPs for managing the records.

Eleven days before the launch of the new scheme that will see patient medical records digitalised, the underpinning legislation is still before the parliament, the system needed to authenticate the identity of doctors is not ready, and no doctors are signed up to use the service.

Addressing more than 300 government leaders and technology experts, the Minister opened the fourth annual FutureGov Summit Australia 2013 in Canberra on 2 December. Emphasising the key challenges and policy directions for digital engagement in the Australian Government, the Minister set the stage for two days of intensive discussions around the latest ICT developments impacting government service delivery in Australia.

The Australian Passport Office (APO) seeks to expand its use of biometric technology, according a request for tender published today.

The APO has use facial recognition in the passport production process since 2005, but wants to enhance that capability and potentially use other kinds of biometrics, the APO said in the tender request.

Australian passports may incorporate voice-recognition and eye-scanning technology as the government looks to expand biometric identification.

Australian passports have included facial recognition technology since 2005, but the government is now investigating "other biometric technologies", according to a request for tender made public on Monday.

The Parliamentary Committee tasked with investigating the feasibility of digitising Australian ballots has unanimously found that a high-tech solution is still too risky, complicated and expensive to make it a reality in the near term.

Draft laws to underpin the operation of the Gillard government's $500 million personally controlled e-health record system also provide another loophole allowing authorities to decide a data breach was "not deliberate".

"Under this legislation, no government and no employee can be sued or prosecuted for any harm or damage arising from a breach," APF Health chairwoman Juanita Fernando said.

"The Australian Privacy Foundation asks how the system, which cannot uniquely identify individuals and simply permits document transmission and viewing, will be used for patient care benefit at all," the APF says in its submission to the Senate inquiry into the PCEHR legislation and related matters.

IN THE CONTEXT OF E-GOVERNMENT conferences and demonstrations of new technology by government agencies, two prominent Australian Senators have endorsed Open Source solutions, report news.com.au and theage.com.au.

In some sectors in Australia, the governance of major ICT projects is currently in crisis. For example, in June last year, Queensland’s first whole of government comprehensive ICT Audit found that ninety percent of the Queensland Government’s ICT systems were outdated and will require replacement within five years at a total cost of $7.4 billion, as Queensland continues to grapple with the catastrophic outcome of years of “chronic underfunding” into its dilapidated ICT infrastructure.

Initiated in 2003 by the former Labor government, HealthSMART was Victoria’s whole-of-health information and communication technology (ICT) strategy to modernise and replace ICT systems throughout the Victorian public healthcare sector. The A$360 million (US$351 million) project aimed to provide healthcare agencies with the tools required to meet the growing healthcare demands expected in the future. However the programme suffered delays, operating issues and unexpected rises in costs.

The electronic payment system called ‘Opal’ was extended to an additional 70 stations last week.

“This marks a significant milestone for commuters across Sydney, as Opal provides cheaper fares, modernises the way people use public transport and puts an end to the Monday morning queue for a ticket,” Berejiklian said.

The Victorian State Government’s ICT reforms agenda will see the scrapping of a controversial e-Services Panel, to be replaced by an e-Services Register.

This new register, to be fully operational in 2013, will be mandated for use by all government departments and agencies.

This initiative, spearheaded by NSW Health, is supported by a raft of technology investments over 10 years – taking the state into the forefront of healthcare reforms.

The state government’s spending agenda was outlined at an inaugural FutureGov Forum NSW (21st June) by the Minister for Health, Jillian Skinner.