IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The Australian Medical Association has expressed serious concerns over clinician input into the project following the shock resignation of highly respected clinical representative Dr Mukesh Haikerwal from the National eHealth Transition Authority (NeHTA) this week.

Health Minister Tanya Plibersek announced on Wednesday that GPs will be able to receive Medicare payments for preparing shared health summaries and event summaries as part of a consultation.

"In deciding which item to bill, GPs will only have to consider the reasonable time it would take - not the complexity of the consultation," Ms Plibersek said in a statement.

Doctors are warning it is vital to ensure personal records do not become compromised, as the range of electronic devices available for access grows.

From July, it is planned that health records held a range of settings, from GP clinics to hospitals, will be collated and available online.

The Australian can reveal that the personally controlled e-health records (PCEHR) system, which was taken offline for more than 24 hours for maintenance at the weekend, was affected by 68 critical and high-severity bugs.

The Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) is moving to address weaknesses in its ability to meet financial management requirements through the adoption of a budget management and forecasting software suite.

The new commercial off the shelf software suite will help redress procedural inefficiencies, usability deficiencies, and provide increased flexibility and integration with reporting tools. The software will also promote greater use of the budgeting tool and assist in alignment with the Australian National Audit Office better practice recommendations.

Augmenting a state's complex health system with technology requires large projects to allow systems to work with each other — and although these are important, they are not what the state now needs to focus on, according to NSW Health CIO Greg Wells.

The 74-page draft legislation (PDF) was published today, and specifies how Australians can sign up for, control and restrict their own e-health record. The draft also detailed the role of a national operator — who will run customer and provider access portals, core services and the National Repositories Service in a dual-datacentre environment — and revealed the harsh penalties for those found breaching patient confidentiality on the system.

Health and Ageing Minister Nicola Roxon has released the draft eHealth records legislation, known as the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) system, for public comment.

The draft legislation features harsh fines for a record being inappropriately accessed and if more than one record is accessed without authorisation, the penalty multiplies by the number of records.

When Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a $1.2 billion investment in Australia’s digital future in the May 2021 Federal Budget, it was a clear signal that while the Covid-19 pandemic may have triggered a serious acceleration in the pace of transformation, his government has no intention of curbing its speed any time soon.

“We must keep our foot on the digital accelerator to secure our economic recovery from Covid-19,” said Mr Morrison.

The Department of Defence’s research and development organisation will separate its corporate and research ICT systems in a bid to improve collaboration.

In a five-year strategy released last week, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) flagged plans to move its corporate applications to the Defence Restricted Network.

The federal government has shut down its Performance Dashboard, used to improve digital services and provide transparency to the public, as part of a significant restructuring of its digital agency.

The Performance Dashboard was launched in late 2016 as a way to promote “government transparency and help drive the ongoing improvement of government services”, with departments and agencies voluntarily uploading data on how their digital initiatives rank in terms of the Digital Delivery Standard.

The Federal Government has released a draft concept of operations document regarding the use of personally controlled electronic health records (PCEHR) in Australia, which are being touted as a cornerstone of national e-health programs that could revolutionise the way aged care is provided.

The Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, has said that the PCEHR initiative means "patients will no longer have to remember every immunisation, every medical test, every prescription as they move from doctor to doctor".

An eHealth record is a secure online summary of your key health information. Your record can include details about current diagnoses, allergies, prescriptions, test results and hospital discharge summaries.

Growth rates have been downgraded, and earlier commitments to return the budget to surplus within a few years may now not be met. Such forecasts have renewed fears of a butchery of the public service, with cost-cutting lay-offs fuelled by a switch to e-government.

Earlier this week, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key raised the prospect of the country's citizenry communicating with various government departments through the use of smartphones. Back-office functions would be merged, and there would be greater use of call centres.

Mr Gray said it was always good to get a positive response to the call for nominations and this year 56 had been received across the three Award programs: 2012 Excellence in eGovernment Awards, ICT Professional of the Year Award and the Government 2.0 Innovator Award.

He said that among the finalists was the Bureau of Meteorology, with both its Australian Hydrological Geospatial Fabric and Next Generation Forecast and Warning System Project progressing to the next round of judging in the Excellence in eGovernment Awards’ Geospatial category.

Every year since 2004, except 2010, the government has published the results of a survey of thousands of people, looking into how they communicate with the government. This survey is the last in the series and was released by Special Secretary of State Gary Gray.

The National e-Health Transition Authority established the plan to fast-track delivery of critical standards needed for the PCEHR infrastructure build and by the lead implementation sites, ahead of next year's July 1 start date.

Health department chief executive Paul Madden has told The Australian the tiger teams are confident they can sign-off the first round of specs "as ready to build" by October 31, and have the rest finalised and reviewed by the end of next month.

An e-health consumer advocacy group has joined a growing choir of those dissatisfied with the lack of communication from lead agencies surrounding implementation of the Federal Government's $467 million personally controlled electronic health records (PCEHR) project initiative.

The group, known as the Consumer Centred eHealth Coalition (CCeHC) and formed in 2009, claims to represent e-health consumers in issues of privacy, security and confidentiality related to the e-health project. It counts the Australian Privacy Foundation, the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, Civil Liberties Australia and the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties among its members.

During a visit to western Sydney this week, federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon visited a GP clinic that will be one of many in the area to lead the rollout of e-health records, including those of infants.

The project means the Blue Book -- a personal health record for infants, which NSW Health has been distributing to parents since 1988 -- will be available electronically and able to be viewed by parents, their GPs and other eligible health workers including those at nearby hospitals.

Patient safety is emerging as a key risk as the adoption of clinical information systems accelerates.

While technology is generally seen as the best way to reduce adverse outcomes, it is increasingly clear that IT also introduces new risks.