[LINK] Open source health records

[Roger Clarke]

At 10:35 +0000 28/4/09, stephen at melbpc.org.au wrote:
>Perhaps of interest, the NSW Dep of Health has run an EHR trial since
>2006, (with 28,000 participants & 41 deployments) which, according to
>an evaluation, has been very successful(?) If so(?) bring it on, imho.
>  http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/factsheets/general/ehr.html
>and their Sep 2008 evaluation ..
>http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/pubs/2008/pdf/healthelink_summary.pdf

Stephen, are you being disingenous, have you been asleep all this 
time, or are you just stirring.

NSW Healthelink is, and has been for some years, justabout the most 
diabolical of all of the misconceived excuses for an EHR trial.

http://www.privacy.org.au/Campaigns/E_Health_Record/HealthElink.html

The bureaucrats refused to deal with advocates.

And they simply voided the already wafer-thin privacy laws in order 
to force the scheme into existence.

The consultants who were evaluating it started to enter into a 
dialogue with advocates, and then suddenly pulled away - having 
clearly received a signal from the client that advocates' views were 
unwelcome.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the NSW Dept of Health is a 
seriously untrustworthy organisation that engineers its results.


To revert to the other thread ...

Yes, there are constructive ways forward.

There are concepts like federated rather than monolithic, for example.

And like diseconomies of scale and scope rather than economies. 
(Unlike the now-unfashionable 'small is beautiful' mantra, those 
concepts come from general systems theory, economics and business).

A bunch of us have been trying to convey such ideas for quite some 
time.  But the bog-ignorant execs and power-brokers keep looking for 
the one-hit, announcable wonder.


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW