IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

The four-year trial funded by the Department of Social Services involves eight Medicare locals and aged care provider Feros Care.

The pilot will evaluate the possible inclusion of new telehealth items on the MBS as well assess the clinical appropriateness and impact of videoconferencing to deliver GP services in aged care.

The payments are designed to encourage take-up of the government's $620 million telehealth program.

Patients in Altona in Julia Gillard's western Melbourne electorate and North Altona in federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon's neighbouring electorate, those in Blacktown and Penrith in western Sydney, and patients in Redland Bay and Strathpine in Brisbane will be able to take advantage of the telehealth scheme.

"E-health is an important area with great potential to improve the convenience and quality of care for patients," she told a conference for GPs in Canberra.

"It's also an area where the government is keen for GPs to take a lead role."

Ms Plibersek said the government would start to roll out the personally controlled e-health system from July this year.

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.

RACGP chair Claire Jackson has called for new payments under the Medical Benefits Schedule in recognition of the extra workload GPs "will undertake in consultations (including updating) the patient’s shared health summary" and other elements of the Gillard government’s $500 million personally controlled e-health record system.

"We are concerned that the current plan does not offer any incentives for general practice to create and maintain documents for indexing in the PCEHR, such as shared health summaries," Professor Jackson said in a statement on Wednesday.

On the weekend, Plibersek announced that the Federal Government will fund an e-health database for doctors, pharmacists and state and territory health authorities, which will allow real-time monitoring of the prescription and consumption of addictive drugs. The database will be available from 1 July.

Speaking at the opening of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) annual conference on the Gold Coast, Ms Plibersek said the government was investing $2.55 million to develop training programs aimed at GPs.

Addressing the Health E-Nation Conference on the Gold Coast yesterday, Plibersek outlined the three levels of support that GPs would receive if taking a patient's medical history was required.

For consultations that take less than 20 minutes, GPs will receive a Level B benefit of $35.60. For those longer than this, a Level C $69 benefit would be provided, and in the case where consultations went for more than 40 minutes, a Level D $101.55 benefit would be provided.

The chief executive of General Practice NSW has warned both State and Federal Governments that GPs are lacking the resources to deal with the country’s e-health agenda, including the $467 million personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) program.

Addressing attendees at the annual e-health forum for divisions of General Practice NSW, CEO Jan Newland, said extensive effort would be required to train and support GPs to deal with the expected e-health changes.

The Australian General Practice Network says the Gillard government's approach of paying for the records to be set up when patients visit a GP is "piecemeal" and won't facilitate solid as well as rapid enrolments.

AGPN chairman Emil Djakic says the government should provide service and practice incentive payments to establish the records for the Personally Controlled e-Health Record system.

"General practice is in an ideal position to be at the forefront of e-health and implementation of the PCEHR," the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners says in a statement released this week.

The change of policy - which follows months of campaigning by doctors' groups on the issue - means GPs will be allowed to add the extra minutes spent on the electronic records to the length of a consultation, and choose the Medicare rebate that corresponds to the total time taken.

They also fear they could fall foul of the Health Insurance Act if they claim a Medicare rebate.

Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton argues Health Minister Tanya Plibersek's funding pledge amounts to nothing more than "allowing doctors to do this for free".

A crackdown on telehealth incentives in this week's budget came after the government found some doctors had hooked up Skype cameras to their computers and conducted telehealth consultations with colleagues in the same practice so they could claim a $6000 telehealth payment.

New rules will now impose a minimum distance of 15km between practitioners before the incentive can be claimed and doctors will have to perform 10 consultations before they get the full payment.

Developed over four years by GS1 Australia in association with the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), state and territory health departments and a number of medical device and pharmaceutical suppliers and industry associations, GS1 Recallnet Healthcare is an electronic product recall notification management system for therapeutic goods.

Last year the government allocated $467 million towards the national program, but details of the design, operation and regulatory arrangements have to date been largely discussed behind closed doors.

But with some major contracts already let for three lead sites, in Brisbane, the NSW Hunter Valley and Melbourne, and nine complementary "wave two" projects, work is now under way.

ECU secau Security Research Centre senior lecturer Trish Williams says the initiative has multiple points of vulnerability that are unlikely to be fully realised until the system goes live.

The $466.7 million plan will digitise and integrate Australia’s patient record databases to allow much greater sharing of patient information, such as allergies, test results and medications, than the current “safe but not particularly useful” paper system.

Today, the federal government released a public discussion paper as part of the development of the Cyber White Paper, which invites submissions from business and the general public on a range of issues regarding the importance of cyberspace to Australia’s social well-being, economic prosperity and broader national interests.

In budget papers released late yesterday, the Government allocated $151 million over three years (including $60 million in 2012-13) to priority projects for Fiona Stanley Hospital and Albany Health Campus.

The projects include the ongoing statewide Patient Administration System being developed under an eHealth reform program of work.

Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, said the draft (PDF) had been released for public consultation and outlined the process for consumers, healthcare providers and data sources to register for the e-health system.