[LINK] Building the Australian National Health Network

[Tom Worthington]

Jan Whitaker wrote:
> 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/> ...
> 
> They are private company owned by COAG, not an industry alliance. ...

NEHTA looks to me more like a political alliance, requiring a level
of consensus from participants and slowing down implementation.

> They have a mulitmillion dollar budget to set the foundation as you 
> say. ...

A few hundred million is not enough, I suggest the health network will 
need tens of billions of dollars, like NBN Co.

> ... Medical services have been delivered since the beginning of the country without such a network in place. ...

My life was placed in danger due to the lack of medical networking, when 
I was taken to hospital by ambulance:
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2008/11/canberra-health-system-first-hand.html>. 


Fortuitously, I was minutes away from a major hospital. I suspect I
got premium treatment, as I was admitted as an ANU lecturer to ANU's own
teaching hospital. ;-)

As depicted in the video shown recently at an ACS forum
<http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2010/03/building-australian-national-health.html>, 

the medical staff on site, in the ambulance and in hospital, tried to 
find out my medical history and medications from me, but I was not in a 
fit state to communicate with them. Had there been some form of medical 
network they could have looked up the details. Without that the 
treatment was slower and presumably more expensive.

>... 98% of practices are computerised now. Some say 100%.

Yes, my GP can collect pathology results online and share these with a 
specialist. But to communicate with the specialist, or a hospital, they 
take out a sheet of letterhead paper, put it in a printer and then put 
the results in an envelope, seal the envelope and hand it to me to 
deliver. That is not a system which worked when I was on a stretcher in 
the back of an ambulance.

> ... The practice systems aren't 'just a web browser' nor should they be. ...

Medical systems could use a web interface. That would then be available 
from a desktop computer in a GP's office, in the back of an ambulance, 
in the hospital and on a mobile device in the consulting
specialist's pocket.

> I'll leave it there. ...

Me too.


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/user/3890