IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

Australian technology leaders believe a lack of skills is the biggest threat to the success of digital delivery.

A new survey also found that IT budgets were growing in line with digital investment and a greater impact from digital disruption was expected this year.

The research comes from the Harvey Nash Australia Digital Event Pulse Survey 2015. It was shared at a recent digital event held in Sydney by recruitment consultancy and IT outsourcing service provider Harvey Nash Australia that attracted more than 120 industry leaders.

More than $40 million is being invested to expand and improve telecommunications services throughout the Northern Territory as part of a three year agreement between the Northern Territory Government and Telstra.

Under the agreement, remote communities across the Northern Territory will benefit, with the territory’s Chief Minister Adam Giles saying that said Telstra and Governments at all levels were working to expand and improve telecommunications.

The $620 million scheme that links doctors and patients via video-link was the centrepiece of Prime Minister Julia Gillard's 2010 election campaign launch.

It was promised the scheme would give patients outside major cities access to a specialist, with a target of 495,000 consultations by July 2015.

The arrangement with Medgate will launch in Australia as Telstra ReadyCare, some time in 2015. It is unclear what the financial arrangements for this service will be and whether patients will be able to claim the consultations against Medicare or whether they will be required to pay the entire amount privately.

Telstra Health recently announced the purchase of the business assets of Medibank’s Anywhere Healthcare, one of Australia’s specialist telemedicine solutions.

Established by Medibank in 2013, Anywhere Health offers people in regional and remote areas of Australia or people with physical constraint access to specialist medical practitioners and other allied health professionals over video conference.

The terms of the deals were not disclosed, but the purchase is another example of Telstra's move to broaden its scope outside its traditional telecommunications businesses.

The increasing number of aged people will place unsustainable stress on established healthcare services and will result in increasing deficits in clinical human resources, the expansion of disease management programs and patient demand for greater self-management.

Announcing the Victorian Government's new ICT strategy, the Assistant Treasurer and Technology Minister Gordon Rich-Phillips said the 50-point action plan had been developed following rigorous consultation with industry and the public. He also took the opportunity to criticise the previous Brumby Government for what he said was "at least $1.44 billion of taxpayers' money wasted in cost blowouts on projects like HealthSMART, myki and the LEAP database."

Vodafone has released an update on its Australian 5G rollout plans and the opportunities the faster cellular network will present to customers and businesses.

Speaking at the Comms Day Summit, TPG Telecom CEO Inaki Berroeta provided a Vodafone 5G network progress report and revealed the plan to offer a 5G fixed wireless services in the first half of 2021 after successful tests that achieved speeds up to 2Gbps.

Nathan McGregor, senior vice president, Asia Pacific at Cradlepoint discusses smart cities and the opportunities of IoT

For many years now, we’ve heard predictions that cities would become technological hubs of sci-fi proportions. While few urban areas have transformed themselves into anything as cinematic as Blade Runner, and The Jetsons lifestyle still seems a way off, a wave of advancements and pioneering applications are breathing new life into the Smart City concept.

makes myGov the default means of engaging with government, supported by "opt-out" provisions; sets concrete savings targets; removes legislative barriers; and strengthens the myGov online credential; consolidating the e-Government effort through a single team under the leadership of a Chief Digital Officer; and appointing a senior minister to champion the digital by default agenda.

It wants to learn from other industries how to use games and social media to engage with the community, according to the chief information officer for the Australian Treasury.

Ahead of his speech at the eGovernment forum at CeBIT Australia in Sydney on Wednesday, Peter Alexander told IT Pro the government was carefully watching trends in technology convergence, social media and "gamification" in order to figure out ways to improve its policies and its engage better with citizens.

According to Jan Newland, chief executive officer of General Practice NSW, there will be an increased need for population health data management in order to deal with the region's ehealth agenda, reports TechWorld.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has continued to lobby the government to change its $466.7 million e-health record system to an “opt-out” model, arguing that the current “opt-in” model will undermine the system’s health improvement objectives.

In its submission (PDF) to the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) Bill 2011, the industry body’s president, Steve Hambleton, maintained the current “opt-in” design will undermine the goals of the system, “to reduce the occurrence of adverse medical events and duplication of treatment”.

New laws to give doctors and pharmacists instant access to medical records may pose a risk to human rights by violating privacy.

A parliamentary joint committee on human rights has called on Health Minister Sussan Ley to explain what safeguards are in place to protect Australians' privacy when their health records are uploaded onto a central electronic database, under the new myHealth Record system.

Smart street furniture – powered and digitally networked furniture that collects and generates data – is arriving in Australia.

It comes in a variety of forms, including benches, kiosks, light poles and bus stops. Early examples in Australia include ChillOUT Hubs installed by Georges River Council in the Sydney suburbs of Kogarah, Hurstville and Mortdale, and information kiosks and smart light poles in the City of Newcastle as part of its Smart City Strategy.

Mukesh Haikerwal, who is the federal government's clinical advisor on e-health, said the HealthSMART program had ''a long tortuous history'' but cost savings would not be made by ditching it, only to start again from scratch to build an electronic system to share patient information in hospitals.

The Age revealed yesterday that the state government was considering abandoning the program, which is five years late and $35 million over budget.

VicRoads provides public access to the statewide roads infrastructure through its Registration and Licensing division (R&L) which is responsible for over 21 million transactions annually - such as driver licence testing, vehicle registrations, ‘fitness to drive’ reviews and licensing decisions through its medical review area and maintaining customer records.

Feros was one of the first aged care providers in Australia to establish telehealthcare services and is widely seen as a pioneer in adopting enabling technologies to help seniors stay at home and live independent lives.

Australia ranks last for affordable broadband internet among developed nations, and experts say it’s yet more evidence that the taxpayer-funded National Broadband Network (NBN) is failing to deliver for consumers and the economy.

Rankings compiled by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library and released this week revealed that Australia places 36th – last – when it comes to broadband affordability in OECD nations.