Some items have yet to be properly tested, which means complete rollout will take a few more months.
The opt-in PCEHR scheme allows consumers to enter personal information, medical history and medication details. They can choose which healthcare organisations can see and edit their record, and view a log of those who have accessed and added information to the record.
One of the biggest benefits of the system is that consumers can share their health information with healthcare professionals from a central online system.
Although the program's national infrastructure partner, Accenture, missed the deadline to provide a working solution for a slew of offerings, the Department of Health and Ageing refused to say if the company would be penalised.
The department declined to respond when asked whether the Accenture contract provided for any damages or penalties -- other than delays in payment -- for missing deadlines.
Accenture project documents prepared more than a year ago state that the PCEHR program would go live in three stages: release "0" for a demonstration model, release "1a" for software vendor testing and release "1b" the full system.
Release 0 should have been ready by September last year, release 1a by February and release 1b by the end of June, the documents sighted by The Australian say.
But when the PCEHR system launched on July 1 only a "vanilla" or light version of the consumer portal was available.
It is understood that some staff at Accenture and the National E-Health Authority, which is overseeing the project, are concerned and frustrated at the implementation process.
For example, integration to Medicare for the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, Medicare Benefits Schedule, Australian Childhood Immunisation Register and Organ Donor Register should have been completed and ready to go by July 1.
A Health spokeswoman confirmed that "migration" of the records was done in mid-August.
The PCEHR audit log is another case in point.
When it was made available, the end result was a mishmash of numbers that looked more like computer language than anything readable.
According to the Health spokeswoman, the "national infrastructure as implemented is complete and live and has been signed off for clinical safety, and was implemented with no critical or high severity system errors or defects".
"There are no outstanding critical or high severity defects from any previous releases."
The Australian previously reported that the PCEHR system was pushed live without a proper backup system and with more than 60 unresolved high-severity and critical bugs. Also, Accenture failed to detect a hacking incident for several months while the system was being developed.
Health has vehemently denied both incidents.
The spokeswoman said the final components of the project included healthcare provider PCEHR registration, the healthcare provider portal, which would allow view access of relevant patient e-health records including information entered by patients, as well as MBS and PBS claim information, immunisation records, and Organ Donor Registration details.
While the components that will allow GP software to upload and view e-health records had been implemented, more testing was required.
"There are several software vendors currently testing their products, and it's expected that the eHealth-conformant software will be in the hands of GPs progressively from this point onwards," the spokeswoman said.
"It's expected that the eHealth-conformant GP software will undergo some limited usability and confidence testing before being made broadly available."
She said the migration of Immunisation records and Organ Donor Registration for consenting consumers was completed on August 19. The Migration of MBS and PBS claim information commenced the same day and would have been completed in a few days.
"In the meantime, people who have registered for a PCEHR and consented to have their MBS and PBS information provided to the PCEHR will progressively get access to these records as a part of the national e-health system."
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Fran Foo
Quelle/Source: Australian IT, 28.08.2012
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