IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

It has come to light that the project will be involving everything from building an operations centre and core ICT infrastructure for the PCEHR program, the project will also develop portals for healthcare suppliers and consumers for accessing to health records. Moreover, a call centre will also be built to handle inquiries about the system.

GovPass to cut Tax File Number application time from a month to minutes, acting DTA chief executive says

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) plans to launch the pilot of its GovPass digital identity program in October, allowing participants to conduct the process of applying for a Tax File Number completely online.

There are some 750,000 applications for TFNs every year, acting DTA Randall Brugeaud told the CeBit eGovernment Conference.

General practitioners, private hospitals, medical centres, pathology labs and diagnostic imaging centres will all be expected to access patient files held in the $500 million PCEHR system when it commences next July, but they will bear the full brunt of fines up to $66,000 for each "inappropriate access" by a doctor or other employee.

Canberra agencies have been working to deliver on the recommendations of the 2008 Gershon review, expected to slash business-as-usual, data centre and procurement costs.

Last week, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the Labor Government had saved $2 billion on ICT since 2007, contributing to a total of $13 billion in public sector savings.

The Federal Government has confirmed it will provide incentives for GPs to participate in its $467 million national e-health record system, scheduled to go live on 1 July, following a prolonged period of lobbying by industry.

Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, confirmed that amendments have been made to the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) to enable access for GPs who participate in the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR).

The number of datasets available on the Government’s open data website has slimmed by more than half after the agency discovered one third of the datasets were junk.

Since its official launch in 2011 ddata.gov.au grew to hold 1200 datasets from government agencies for public consumption.

In July this year the Deaprtment of Finance migrated the portal to a new open source platform - the Open Knowledge Foundation CKAN platform - for greater ease of use and publishing ability.

The blueprint is part of the government's latest e-health progress report issued this week, which includes a development timeline for the roll-out of the e-health program, as well as the development of personally controlled e-health records and telehealth initiatives.

The government plans to have the national infrastructure for the PCEHR in place within the first quarter of 2012, with further enabling legislation ideally set to pass in March to April.

The Federal Government has launched an $8 million in-home telemonitoring health trial for chronically ill veterans through the National Broadband Network (NBN).

The initiative was announced by Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, Warren Snowdon, and Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy.

Health Minister Peter Dutton said the system cost $1 billion but so far only a few hundred doctors were uploading patients' records into it.

He said this was another Labor problem, although not in the same league as the National Broadband Network (NBN).

Increased government leadership is needed to successfully implement e-health initiatives across the entire healthcare sector, as opposed to individual providers, a House of Representatives committee has found.

In its report into the role and potential of the National Broadband Network (NBN), the infrastructure and communications committee found that while the NBN will play a significant role in improving the implementation of e-health systems, challenges remain in gaining wider change.

Ann Steward says inconsistent data programs for government websites often make it difficult for people to find the services they needed.

"It is often stored in many formats, often stored across various agencies," she told the CeBIT Australia eGovernment forum in Sydney.

"People at the time, when the programs or the systems were being put in place... probably didn't give account that (consistency) would be important."

Since the beginning of July people living in remote and regional parts of Australia, as well as some outer metropolitan areas have been able to have video-consultations with medical specialists thanks to the introduction of Medicare rebates for those services.

Consultation moves forward with position paper release.

The federal government has provided the most comprehensive look at planned legislation for the expansion of its federated digital identity scheme to state and territory governments and the private sector to date.

The Digital Transformation Agency on Thursday released a position paper [pdf] for consultation ahead of the planned introduction of the legislation, dubbed the ‘Trusted Digital Identity Bill’, to parliament in “late 2021”.

The Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) has allocated $21 million to the National E-Health Transition Authority’s (NEHTA) for the final scope of the national e-health record system.

The final round of funding for the government’s $466.7 million Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) project has come some four months after it was scheduled for allocation last November.

The Federal Government will pour a further $8 million into its personally-controlled electronic health records system to allow pathology results to be added to a person’s eHealth record.

In a speech to the Health Informatics conference today, Health Minister Tanya Plibersek revealed the further investment and said the total number of users currently on the system was 520,000.

Backs Royle recommendations, including NeHTA closure.

The federal government plans to create electronic health records for all Australians by default in the hope an opt-out model will counter the slow take up of the former PCEHR system, now known as myHealth Record.

Health Minister Sussan Ley today said less than ten percent of eligible Australians had signed up for a health record. She said the slow uptake was undermining the system's clinical usefulness.

The former Labor government's rollout of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record "has wasted over a billion dollars," according to federal health minister Peter Dutton.

Dutton yesterday announced a review into the current status and future of the PCEHR program. The review will be led by Richard Royle, executive director of the UnitingCare Health group in Queensland and vice-president of the Australian Private Hospitals Association.

The Australian Department of Health and Ageing has spruiked its success in signing up over 3500 users to its personally-controlled e-health record system in over three weeks, amid claims of issues plaguing the system since its launch.

In 2010, the government promised that it would create an electronic health record system by 1 July 2012, so that every Australian who wanted a record of their medical history online could sign up for one.

The Government will likely struggle to meet its target of 500,000 registrants for the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) by June, after it was revealed only 109,000 Australians had registered in the last nine months.

The system, launched last July, has been plagued with issues, including with its online registration system and availability for general practitioners.

Former iSOFT Australia managing director Denis Tebbutt has urged general practitioners to better collaborate with the Government's lead e-health body to ensure success of the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR).

The $628.3 million initiative, scheduled to go live on July 1, allows Australians to opt into a shared electronic health record, providing information to authorised GPs and doctors on one's personal history and medication.