Backs Royle recommendations, including NeHTA closure.
The federal government plans to create electronic health records for all Australians by default in the hope an opt-out model will counter the slow take up of the former PCEHR system, now known as myHealth Record.
Health Minister Sussan Ley today said less than ten percent of eligible Australians had signed up for a health record. She said the slow uptake was undermining the system's clinical usefulness.
Australians will be given an electronic health record with funding to be announce in the budget.
All Australians will now have an electronic health record as part of a new e-health system, and people will have to opt out if they do not want to take part.
The previous arrangement, commissioned in 2012, was an “opt in” system where patients could choose to join, but it was plagued with problems.
Coffs Harbour City Council has reapplied to create a pilot joint organisation of four North Coast councils.
The proposed joint organisation would include Clarence, Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Nambucca.
Coffs Harbour mayor Denise Knight said the four councils had been sharing services for many years.
Read more: AU: New South Wales: Coffs council looks at joint organisation
Digital unit learns from New South Wales, Singapore.
Victoria’s state government is launching Service Victoria, an agency that will provide a whole of government approach to digital transaction services, it was announced in the 2015-16 Budget today.
“Currently these services are excessively difficult to navigate, with government transactions and information spread across hundreds of phone hotlines and 538 different web sites,” a government announcement said.
Read more: AU: Victoria brings together transaction services in new agency
Global advisory and accounting firm Ernst and Young has blasted the Australian government’s efforts to digitise its services to the community and business as “poor”, warning that “the nation’s ability to gain competitive advantage through innovative use of digital technology will quickly be eroded” unless a lack of political and financial commitment is reversed.
A new report — Digital Australia: State of the Nation — released on Monday by the firm report paints a dismal picture of government digitisation efforts to date, highlighting new findings that say that “almost a third of citizens nominated the public sector as providing their worst digital experience, putting it at the bottom of our national rankings.”
Read more: Ernst & Young brands Australian governments digital laggards