Spending on e-health had crashed during the previous year, with $41.5 million left unspent out of $79 million allocated to national projects, including the now defunct HealthConnect.
But even the heavily trimmed allocation for the past financial year was underspent by $11.2 million, the Department's annual report reveals.
The department also funded half the National E-Health Transition Authority's annual budget from the e-health allocation, but the funding amount is not reported.
Despite a number of high-profile e-health reviews, few IT consultants profited from the federal Health purse. KPMG took the largest share, at $335,358 for its advice on implementing a nationwide system for the electronic prescribing and dispensing of medications. The KPMG report is yet to be released.
GSB Consulting was paid $68,000 to contribute to the eHealth Future Directions briefing paper for the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council, and a further $65,000 for a review of literature on electronic decision support.
The NOUS Group received $16,750 for a final report on the eHealth Future Directions summit.
According to the report, the department saw success in the development with NEHTA of individual and provider identifiers, standardised clinical terminologies and secure messaging standards.
"In addition, the department worked closely with NEHTA on the development of targeted packages to support the implementation of electronic discharge, specialist referra; and pathology clinical services," it says.
"The department also contributed to the development of the National E-Health Strategy through the national e-Health Information Principal committee. When the strategy is implemented, it will allow significantly greater inter-jurisdictional and national co-ordination of e-health policy direction."
The National E-Health Strategy has yet to be released for public discussion.
Contractors consulting to the pharmacy sector fared much better. Health Outcomes was paid $500,000 to evaluate the dose administration aids program and the patient medication profile program, both conducted by Pharmacy Guild members.
SMS Consulting received a total of $575,000 to help the department and the Guild to deliver a registration, claiming and payment system; Healthcare Management Advisors was paid $160,000 to review the supply PBS medicines to aged care facilities, and another $82,500 to assess the impact of collecting and recording PBS data for the prescription co-payment scheme.
And KPMG pocketed $42,000 to identify opportunities for improving the overall performance of the Pharmbiz electronic communication system.
The report says a major achievement was an e-prescribing trial in the Northern Territory, in a community pharmacy and aged care setting, resulting in fewer misplaced prescriptions and delays in mailing or faxing scripts.
However, industry observers have noted that the trial involved a limited, point-to-point transmission service, rather than a scalable interchange system needed for a robust national e-prescribing system.
"Another highlight was a collaborative effort with the NT Government, which resulted in a shared electronic health record becoming available for 25,000 territory residents," the report says.
"With patient consent, a shared record allows information about a patient's medication, test results, diagnoses and allergies to be available to participating healthcare providers such as hospitals, health centres, GPs and Aboriginal Medical Services.
"This can improve patient outcomes, particularly in emergency situations for individuals who change general practitioners or use multiple health services, as it allows secure access to up-to-date medical information."
Health Minister Nicola Roxon is yet to comment on the release of the annual report. Her leading public servant, department secretary Jane Halton, has this week outraged health IT professionals by describing them as "propeller-heads" and their activities as "nerd city" in Senate Estimates hearings.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Karen Dearne
Quelle/Source: Australian IT, 31.102.008
