Federal and state ministers have agreed to release draft legislation for the healthcare identifiers regime for public consultation ahead of its planned introduction to the federal parliament in the autumn 2010 sittings.
The tight timeframe means responses to the draft will likely be required during the Christmas/school holiday period, testing the resources of many largely voluntary consumer and privacy advocacy groups which have voiced concerns over aspects of the proposals this year.
Under the planned Unique Healthcare Identifier scheme, all patients will be issued with an individual health ID number linked to their existing Medicare number and card; the number, together with a person's name and date of birth, is essential for the accurate matching of health information sent across electronic systems by medical providers such as doctors, hospitals, laboratories and pharmacists.
The intention is to improve patient care and safety across the healthcare system, while the automatic collation of patient data will provide a basis for the creation of personal e-health records.
The Australian Health Ministers' Conference (AHMC) has set a mid-2010 deadline for the start of the UHI program, to be operated by Medicare, but a range of privacy and legal obstacles need to be overcome first.
Consumer and medical privacy groups have been unhappy with the handling of public consultations over the proposed legal framework for the regime to date. A discussion paper was deemed unduly limited in scope, while an initial refusal to post submissions attracted further fire.
A commitment by the National E-Health Transition Authority to release three privacy impact assessments examining aspects of the proposal also failed to defuse tensions, with the documents still not available on the organisation's website.
However, the health ministers appear to have taken some of the key concerns on board.
"Following the first round of consultations in July and August, further work has been done to clarify and strengthen patient privacy," their communique said.
"We have now agreed that the legal framework will limit the use of identifiers to health information and communication purposes as part of delivering a healthcare service, and penalties will apply to their misuse.
"The scheme will be underpinned by effective national privacy arrangements to protect health information wherever it is associated with identifiers, regardless of whether the information is held by a public or private organisation."
The AHMC has committed to an "appropriate governance framework with transparent and accountable processes", and agreed to review the operation of the identifier service two years after its commencement.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Karen Dearne
Quelle/Source: Australian IT, 13.11.2009
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