The highly secretive program control group within the Health Department is the main steering body overseeing the implementation of the national personally controlled electronic health record system.
The control group includes health deputy secretary Rosemary Huxtable, chief information officer Paul Madden, e-health division first assistant secretary Fionna Granger and National E-Health Transition Authority chief executive Peter Fleming. The department's e-health division head, Matthew Corkhill, in response to a Freedom of Information request lodged by The Australian in August, found it would be against the public interest to release minutes of all meetings by the control group since January 1.
The minutes are crucial as they would shed light on why the department decided to go ahead with the July 1 launch of the e-health record when the transition authority advised against it due to the unstable system's more than 60 high-severity and critical bugs, among other key decisions related to the e-health program.
It would also reveal why IBM Australia's $23.6 million contract to build the National Authentication Service for Health was suddenly terminated.
The IT giant and the department have referred the matter to their respective legal teams.
Mr Corkhill said that the documents contained "details indicating the substance of commercial disputes in respect of which legal proceedings are taking place" although IBM was not named.
He said the 30 separate minutes of PCG meetings were "replete with options, assessment of those options, and recommendations for the department and external service providers involved in the PCEHR program".
"Their content goes to the heart of the department's 'thinking' in the overall process of planning and implementing the PCEHR program," he said.
If the documents were to be released "there would be a focus on issues which reflect matters now superseded and no longer relevant in the context of the ongoing development and implementation of the PCEHR program", he said.
According to Mr Corkhill, the documents contain details of third parties' informing the department about potential security risks, defects and vulnerabilities in the planned rollout of the program.
The minutes' release could "equally inform those whose motives are, or may be, to attack or destabilise the PCEHR system". Mr Corkhill previously denied The Australian access to a key risk-assessment report by Ernst & Young into the PCEHR system.
---
Autor(en)/Author(s): Fran Foo
Quelle/Source: Australian IT, 27.11.2012
Bitte besuchen Sie/Please visit:
