It took 11 months to hit the first 250,000 as of June 5. This time the government will have about three weeks to repeat the feat.
The government had aimed for half a million Australians with a personally controlled eHealth record by next month.
The last-gasp dash comes as Health Department figures show that for the first time since July last year, the number of registrations far outnumber the number of logins, meaning most people were not using the opt-in system.
At a budget estimates hearing last week, Health Deputy Secretary Rosemary Huxtable said that on June 4, there were 10,000 registrations, the highest number in a single day.
"I think that we are still in sight of that 500,000 figure," Ms Huxtable said, when asked whether the target could be achieved.
"If we go back to 2012-13, there was certainly an expectation that we would, through the eHealth sites, have people at a stage of readiness and awareness at that point," she said.
"The reality is that the development, the underpinning work that we needed to do in a technical sense, was complex and took time.
"If you project through that 10,000 a day figure, we have very strong growth at this point." However, Ms Huxtable later softened her initial response, saying "while 500,000 may be a stretch in that regard, I think we are certainly heading in the right direction."
PCEHR registrations had skyrocketed by about 226,000, from 24,180 in March to 250,000 last month.
Ms Huxtable cited a few reasons for the performance, and one was the increasing number of features in the PCEHR.
"It was not until around that time that we had GP software enabled to upload to the system. So that has taken time," she said.
Another tactic used to hike the numbers was the "assisted registration process" where a third-party was hired to enrol people.
Ms Huxtable said Aspen Medical was running assisted registration programs via the government's change and adoption partner, McKinsey & Co.
As the government rushed to meet its deadline, data from Health showed people's interest in the PCEHR could be dwindling after signing up.
Since it was launched, the number of logins was more than the number of registrations, meaning users on average logged into the system at least once.
This trend stopped last month when there were 84,549 registrations to 38,610 logins. In April, there were 29,415 registrations to 33,059 logins.
Health IT expert David More said there was still "a very long way to go" before the PCEHR was clinically useful and improved healthcare outcomes.
"Overall, the statistics appear to suggest that usage of the PCEHR as opposed to the registrations, which are being stimulated and sponsored by paid recruiting agents, continues to be very low, probably involving only one or two visits at most by most of those registered with a good few never bothering after registering to log on," Dr More said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Fran Foo
Quelle/Source: The Australian / National Affairs, 11.06.2013
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