IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

According to the AIIA CEO, Suzanne Campbell, the CEFC has not “suitably addressed” nor fully considered ICT solutions, adding that there was a “glaring omission” in the GEFC report, which only “indirectly singled out ICT solutions as examples of energy efficiency technologies."

I recently had the pleasure of chairing the Masterclass associated with Australia's glowing and growing ICT industry awards, the iAwards. The content was second to none.

The high growth, highly innovative Australian ICT companies in the audience gave as good as they got, toing-and-froing with a cast of outstanding national and international speakers.

Researchers from the University of Tasmania surveyed residents on King Island in Bass Strait in an attempt to establish the carbon emissions from their healthcare-related travel.

Isabelle Ellis, Professor of Nursing: Rural and Regional Practice Development, University of Tasmania, writes below that in one year, the islanders surveyed travelled more than 350,000 km for their health care generating more than 130 tonnes of carbon emissions.

Welcoming yesterday’s release of the Coalition’s Plan for the Digital Economy and E-Government, the AIIA said it now “calls time” for an incoming government to take action.

In March communications minister Stephen Conroy and prime minster, Julia Gillard, chose a retail store in Perth to announce that they would release, at the end of May, a National Digital Economy Strategy.

They promised that: "The National Digital Economy Strategy will provide the framework that will enable industry and business to build on and take full advantage of this world class infrastructure [the NBN]."

The college last month won a contract to develop video consultation standards for the Federal Government’s $618.5 million telehealth rebate scheme.

It began meeting with vendors a fortnight ago on issues expected to affect the uptake and usefulness of video conferencing in medical consultations.

Their responses to the draft plan - released in April by Health Minister Nicola Roxon - became public this week, and most slammed it as impractical, unsafe and a waste of money.

This negative view of the so-called ConOps draft is worrisome as it's meant to provide the technical nuts-and-bolts for the PCEHR, with patient enrolments set to begin next year in July.

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) is worried that key reforms needed to transform how the government now interacts with citizens is could fall badly behind mainstream consumer experiences as the corporate world continues to digitise its services apace.

Mr Rich-Phillips said that the move to use the market to provide ICT services to the Victorian Government was a significant shift, and in line with the aims of the Victorian Government ICT Strategy 2013-14 released earlier this year.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has enlisted technology vendors to inform its development of telehealth standards for the Government.

The College has until October to introduce video consultation standards for the Government’s $618.5 million telehealth rebate scheme.

Both the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) and the Australian Privacy Foundation have told a Senate inquiry hearing in Canberra that personally-controlled e-health records should not go live on July 1 as planned.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is reaching out to the public for feedback on how it should enforce privacy regulation related to personally controlled electronic heath records (PCEHR).

According to figures published recently by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and tabled in Parliament this month, the organisation “received no complaints regarding the PCEHR system” during the 2012-13 reporting period and closed only one outstanding complaint, related to the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010, that was held over from the previous year.

The Queensland Parliament’s Health and Community Services Committee is holding an inquiry into telehealth services in Queensland. It will consider implementation of telehealth, including the Rural Telehealth Service that was announced in February 2013 in the Blueprint for better healthcare in Queensland.

The Department updated the software it uses for its payroll system in April this year. “We did that within time and within budget. We’ve had absolutely no payroll issues whatsoever, and our clients and staff absolutely happy with the way in which the upgrade went,” said Middleditch.

The report on Australians’ use of e-Government Services shows that the internet, when available as an option, was the most commonly used channel to contact Government.

Special Minister of State, Gary Gray said nearly half the Australians contacting the Government (47 per cent) used the internet on their most recent occasion.

The first the Australian public heard about the project to overhaul the Child Support Agency’s key IT system was probably in May this year. At that stage, Human Services Minister Jan McLucas announced that the then-Gillard Government would, as the Senator said at the time, “deliver improvements to information technology systems to ensure millions of Australians receive government payments efficiently and effectively.”

This comes on the back of the National Commission of Audit Report that noted that public cloud computing could deliver savings of 20-30% when compared to buy-and-install computer infrastructure. The Commission recommended that government adopt a "cloud-first" approach at least for low risk, generic IT systems.

As at June 30, the Department of Health and Ageing said that total number of users was 397,745. The majority of these registrations resulted from a recent push by DoHA using consultants to sign people up at public hospitals and at eHealth roadshows.

While the budget highlights an already announced $350 million innovation investment fund, Deloitte Consulting technology agenda managing partner Robert Hillard said it did not go far enough in encouraging agencies to deliver government services through digital channels, which is a "truly substantial cost-saving opportunity".