This is the initial part of the post - read more by clicking on the title of the article. David.
Feb 06, 12 09:30PM
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The almost six hours that I spent watching the Senate Enquiry was fascinating. We really had two utterly different camps in action as I briefly mentioned yesterday. You can gauge the polarity of the views presented by the reporting we have seen.
In the camp that there are a few minor issues that need to be addressed and that all is pretty much going as expected we have reports like this.
E-health records on track: government
By Josh Taylor, ZDNet.com.au on February 6th, 2012
The Department of Health and Ageing and the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) have rejected claims that NEHTA has mismanaged the national e-health record implementation.
Responding to criticism levelled at the government-owned company by the Medical Software Industry Association (MSIA) that NEHTA staff are not qualified, NEHTA CEO Peter Flemming said that his staff are "very skilled and dedicated", with some being the "world's leading experts in their field".
The MSIA had suggested that...
This is the initial part of the post - read more by clicking on the title of the article. David.
This is the initial part of the post - read more by clicking on the title of the article. David.
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Sign in nowa) unless the 'naysayers' be brought on board to openly support the existing program it does not have a snowball's hope in hell of ever going anywhere
(b) many of those who advise caution are not against the project per se, they are just asking that it be put on hold and forensically reviewed before charging ahead willy nilly. That seems like a very reasonable position to adopt. It is too late to fix some of the problems which are claimed to exist after the horse has bolted.
(c) those who say nothing much is wrong and there is no need to be concerned may well be right. Perhaps it will be all OK if we just keep steaming ahead.
The conclusion I have come to is that, when one weighs up the credentials of those who want to steam ahead against those who recommend pausing and reevaluating where we are at and if we are on the right course, I cannot for the like of me see what is to be gained from steaming ahead in such difficult, turbulent, uncharted waters in the hope that all will be well. On the other hand I can see the downside of doing so from a political, commercial and public safety perspective.
(a) what has been spent on the PCEHR so far to-date
(b) what has been committed but yet to be spent
(c) how much more, over and above (a) plus (b) will be required
Everything of course is on track because everything is within DOHA's and Medicare's control, while NEHTA plays the patsy with Academy award winning skill, and the tax payer funded treasury is conveniently raided to the tune of $467M at the same time bureaucratic budgets and empires expand.
It's win, win, win for the Politicians as they cut the ribbon on July 1st, Hon. Plibersek registers for her PCEHR, DOHA and Medicare wring their hands at their skill and expanded budgets and power, and NEHTA pats itself on the pack if the plan goes successfully and takes the fall should the plan go awry in a highly unlikely event.
The senators, our voted representatives, neither have the skill nor interest to hold bureaucratic ehealth powers to account, and Sir Humphrey continues to pull the strings and call the ehealth shots at the expense of public and tax payers interest.
The rest is just a distraction from the main event going on behind closed bureaucratic doors, and the punter knows no difference between his MBS data on Medicare online and his newly skinned and $70M PCEHR ($467M) offering.
DOHA and Medicare reps did not look the slightest bit uncomfortable at the inquiry, and with good reason not to. NEHTA looked as clueless as ever yet the senators were not motivated or informed enough to ask and table follow-up probing or insightful questions to penetrate the lies, damned lies and deceit NEHTA regurgitate in a pathological manner with polished consistency – it’s the rail-gauge problem dummy. And when they can’t lie, they just don’t bother to answer their questions on notice.
A PCEHR will be launched on July 1st, much tax payer money will have been pilfered over the last two budget years and it will not make the slightest bit of difference or benefit to healthcare or patients. Let’s see the metrics for the Key Success criteria of the PCEHR to justify this $467M spend and no doubt we’ll be handed a blank sheet of paper.
And no bureaucrat, senator, representative, Quango employee or high paid consultant will lose a seconds worth of comfortable sleep in the process.
This does not address the reality that all people make mistakes; the complexity of the health care environment makes it impossible for a closed group to anticipate every potential problem.
Break down the walls of secrecy however, and you have a thousand critical eyes looking for the holes.
Eventually, your solution approaches a state of being watertight.
MBS and PBS data on their own are pretty useless or downright dangerous. The PBS records will tell you that a prescription for a certain drug was filled on a particular date, but it won't tell you that the drug was subsequently stopped because the patient reacted badly. MBS records can tell you that a person had a Level B consultation with her GP but not what was discussed. MBS records may tell that she had a particular test or procedure, but not the outcome.
Anyway the politicians have been saying for many months that anyone can "register" for a PCEHR after 1st July, not that the system will be functional in any meaningful way.
What was that medication I was prescribed last year that I was allergic to? gee, I can't remember....
the PBS and MBS data doesn't have high value, but it's not useless, and only dangerous if the users are willfully stupid.
I don't think you need to spend 476 million to find out what my prescription was! I can ring my GP surgery - they know, or I can ring my pharmacist - he knows. Or failing that, I could even ring Medicare and ask them.
I don't have a computer anyway, and a phone call costs me just 10 cents. Let your fingers do the walking! For that amount of money each and every australian can make about 50 phone calls a year for 5 years!
If you really, really want an electronic version of it - take a photo or use a scanning app on your phone.
What happens next?