The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) released its first annual report mid-November 2017. Amongst its main concerns is the development of My Health Record (MyHR), the controversial national electronic health record.
The system currently has more than 5.3 million users (Australia has around 25 millions inhabitants). This is an encouraging outcome, but the government is still far from its goal, which is to gather more than 20 million Australian citizens on the platform.
The early stages of a national digital health strategy
The outcomes of the ADHA is quite positive because the organization has fulfilled a number of its strategic priorities, such as:
- 1. Increasing the number of people and organizations registered for the MyHR. More than 5.3 million people are currently using the system.
- 2. Setting up the secure messaging trials.
- 3. Writing the national digital health strategy, consisting of seven priorities, aiming to guide a coordinated approach to the delivery of digital health in the nation through 2022.
These priorities include ensuring that health information is available wherever and whenever it is needed, which can be exchanged securely and uses high-quality data with a commonly understood meaning.
Priority #1: the development of My Health Record
Health data privatization, inefficiency: a controversial system
The improvement of MyHR is one of the main concerns of the agency. The system have been criticized, some people accusing the device of not sufficiently protecting the private data of users – several data breaches were identified during the year – and to be inefficient.
The agency still manages to convince
Despite the obstacles, the Australian Digital Health Agency met some of the challenges. During its first year of implementation, it has managed to connect more than twice as many hospitals and health services to My Health Record as were connected in July 2016.
It also managed to increase the volume of clinical document sharing, with 14 million medical prescriptions now uploaded.
Target 2018: Developing an opt-out model
The goals of the agency for 2018 are ambitious.
The organization presents in its report its strategic priorities for the coming year, including:
- transiting to an opt-out* model as part of the further development of MyHR, which is likely to be a controversial move. Objective: A digital record will be automatically created for every Australian by the end of 2018 unless one actively asks not to participate.
- pursuing with the secure messaging trials;
- preparing a draft of the framework for interoperability – called the « licence to operate » by the ADHA CEO, Tim Kelsey.
Other Concerns: Medication safety, digital models of care and digital training for workforce
- Another of the agency’s top priorities is medication safety. The ADHA has announced a few wins in this area recently, such as getting on board with the MyHR community pharmacy vendors, the Guilde (Pharmacy Guild of Australia), a national employers’ organization promoting the value of the role of community pharmacy in the Australian health care system, and national professional pharmacy organization representing Australia’s 29,000 pharmacists working in all sectors and across all locations.
Moreover, the hospital pharmacy vendor Pharmhos is busily uploading dispensed medicines records from public hospitals to the national system (source: Pulseitmagazine.com.au).
- The agency’s other projects for 2018 are:
- ensuring better availability and access to prescription and medicine information;
- deploying digitally enabled models of care;
- ensuring the workforce is confidently using digital health technologies;
- developing a thriving and innovative digital health industry.
« Technology is transforming our ability to predict, diagnose and treat disease, » said Agency Chair Jim Birch AM (source: Technologydecisions.com.au). But there is much more we can do to realize its full potential for the health of every Australian: giving consumers more control of their health and care, connecting and empowering healthcare providers, and promoting Australia’s global leadership in digital health and innovation. »
* Opt-out communications are messages sent for marketing, promotion or fundraising that include an option for the recipient to be removed from any future messages.
