[LINK] Building the Australian National Health Network

[Jan Whitaker]

At 10:55 AM 14/03/2010, Tom Worthington wrote:

>Not quite. NEHTA seems to be more like the Communications Alliance
><http://www.commsalliance.com.au/>, in that it is creating standards by
>consensus between the parties involved. NEHTA does not appear to have
>the authority, nor then multi-billion dollar budget needed to 
>implement a national system.take aprt

They are private company owned by COAG, not an industry alliance. 
They have a mulitmillion dollar budget to set the foundation as you 
say. The government hasn't approved the next stages for EHRs, as 
Nehta keeps telling us as they and government press for their 
legislative changes.

I do NOT want health funding dependent upon participating in EHRs or 
such a network at all. It is NOT the primary purpose of health 
services. Such a network or information is a single element of a 
complex system of healthcare delivery. Medical services have been 
delivered since the beginning of the country without such a network in place.
BTW, there already is incentive funding for electronic upgrades of 
practices and hospitals already. Can't recall the program, but it's 
there and has been for a few years. According to recent testimony, 
98% of practices are computerised now. Some say 100%.


>The NHN could provide open source software and a hosted systems, for 
>those who wanted to use them, as well as standard interfaces. The 
>minimum a doctor, or hospital, would need to use the system would be 
>a smart phone with a web browser. They would not need any special 
>software or hardware. The system would also provide online training, 
>from simple introductory materials, all the way up to accredited 
>vocational and tertiary courses.

And this is not a good idea either from a security standpoint and for 
standards requirements. Above is a very simplistic perspective of an 
extremely complex problem that those of us who have been studying it 
for many many years consistently point out. The practice systems 
aren't 'just a web browser' nor should they be. They are medical 
record-keeping systems, prescription systems, referral systems, and 
based on health informatics standards for doing that. It is a 
specialised field, with defined messaging security and format for 
information exchange. Just having an agreed vocabulary is a 
challenge, let alone the range of data formats.

I'll leave it there. I don't have time to go through this design 
debate for the umpteenth time.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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