IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

In terms of overall spending trend of the Australian healthcare industry, IT spending has a very minor share in the overall spending. As per our industry estimates, healthcare industry spent only 2% of its overall healthcare spending in 2009, which is very less in comparison to the international standards. Thus, the segment holds a lot of potential for future growth. Our report will help clients to better understand the market dynamics and get an insight of the current and the future outlook of the Australian healthcare IT industry.

Unveiling the plan, the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, said that every minute detail of a person’s medical record will be combined together through electronic medium in a short form by the mid of the next year.

He further added that the e-health system will be accessible to both patients and physicians only after they enter they unique 16-digit identification number, which will be given to them very soon.

Typically, mental health patients visit a number of healthcare providers and it is possible for a patient to have a GP, psychologist and psychiatrist and also deal with other health professionals, pharmacists and even rehabilitation programs, who all need accurate and up to date information about the patient's care and medication.

The report, which was developed by consultancy Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu earlier this year but only partially published last week, was endorsed by state and federal health ministers last week as a key strategy document outlining how the nation's outdated and dysfunctional health IT systems should be brought up to date.

Journet’s role in Austrade demands that Australian education and training is marketed and promoted internationally and it certainly helps the agency’s case when “Australia has become a leader in e-learning content and educational technology systems”.

Like most countries, walking into a doctors surgery can be a laborious process, with medical records being re-told over and over again before diagnosis can get under way. However, the Federal government has looked to amend this process by putting medical records online through an electronic health record system.

According to a new report from consults Ovum, Australia's national level eHelath strategy development has slowed to a crawl.

Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton has announced an independent review of the project to see how it can be improved.

AMA national president Dr Steve Hambleton, one of the panel members for the review, says e-health records need to be made easier for doctors to use.

Global advisory and accounting firm Ernst and Young has blasted the Australian government’s efforts to digitise its services to the community and business as “poor”, warning that “the nation’s ability to gain competitive advantage through innovative use of digital technology will quickly be eroded” unless a lack of political and financial commitment is reversed.

A new report — Digital Australia: State of the Nation — released on Monday by the firm report paints a dismal picture of government digitisation efforts to date, highlighting new findings that say that “almost a third of citizens nominated the public sector as providing their worst digital experience, putting it at the bottom of our national rankings.”

Key points:

• Estonia was one of the first countries to declare internet access to be a human right
• 99 per cent of government services are available online 24/7
• 50 new AI applications are set to go online within the public sector by 2020

Walking through the fairy-tale streets of Estonia's capital Tallinn, it may seem hard to believe that this tiny nation is home to one of the most advanced e-governance systems in the world.

At the beginning of ‘The Great Debate’, the audience was polled. 68 per cent of delegates thought that Australia’s e-government is better, versus 32 per cent who supported Europe.

Peter Reichstadter, Head of Digital Austria at Federal Chancellery and Graham Bell, CIO of City of London formed Team Europe.

To say that the project has its doubters and critics would be an understatement. The Medical Software Industry of Australia (MSIA), the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Consumers e-health Alliance are among the many groups that spoke to the senate committee about their concerns regarding the implementation of the PCEHR. Their complaints are varied and range from privacy, to governance and liability, through to doubts about whether anyone would actually use the system.

The Government will redesign australia.gov.au to serve as the single site for Australians to seek out government services, with an anticipated relaunch for the first quarter of 2009.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and US offer advice on potential smart city vulnerabilities and how to mitigate them.

New guidance, Cybersecurity Best Practices for Smart Cities, wants to raise awareness among communities and organizations implementing smart city technologies that these beneficial technologies can also have potential vulnerabilities. A collaboration among the Five Eye nations (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US), it advises communities considering becoming smart cities to assess and mitigate the cybersecurity risks that comes with the technology.

A joint effort between the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand yielded recommendations to prevent cyber attacks on increasingly digital infrastructure.

As municipal infrastructure becomes increasingly integrated with technologies to improve the operations and efficiency of basic utilities—running water, power, and internet access—the governments of the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand launched updated cybersecurity protocols.

The concept of heavily connected, internet driven Smart Cities bristling with digital cameras and sensors might have been the dream of Big Tech firms like Google and Amazon looking to rewire urban infrastructure in their own image, but the Five Eyes intelligence community, including the Australian Signals Directorate, has just fired off a serious new warning about the major cyber risks technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT)  and 5G now pose.

In a major upgrade to advice previously directed at the deployment of 5G networks, the Five Eyes agencies are now telling everyone from major carriers to town mayors and wastewater operators to take a serious second look at the heavily-pumped notion of connecting everything from rubbish bins to traffic lights to the net.

The Australian Government has announced a grant of nearly 1.4 million AUD (around 1 million USD) for four Vietnamese high-tech application projects in the field of digital transformation, through the Aus4Innovation Programme.

The funding is made within the framework of the Innovation Partnership Grants under the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Aus4Innovation Programme in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam.

REGIONAL and rural health services could fall further behind big cities without urgent action, a new Australian Medical Association report warns.

The AMA released its Position Statement on Better Access to High Speed Broadband for Rural and Remote Health Care on Friday.

It calls on the Government to improve internet access and affordability across the nation.

While yesterday's game changing announcement has been largely welcomed by the communications and content industries, the revamped strategy will add at least another year to the eventual deployment of high speed broadband services in Australia. With the build time slated for eight years and another onerous vendor RFP to be issued the overall timeline has been pushed out by at least 12 months.