Ehealth is a priority

Above: DoHA secretary Jane Halton tells Health-e-Nation ehealth is a national priority

By Natasha Egan

The foundations are in place, participation is building and functionality is growing for a connected and innovative health system, an ehealth leadership summit heard on Wednesday.

Health-e-Nation in Melbourne has this week brought together leaders from health, government and IT communities from across Australia and around the world to share ideas and experiences on ehealth innovation.

Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) secretary Jane Halton told delegates ehealth was a national priority and while the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record system (PCEHR) was the foundation, it doesn’t sit alone.

“It’s the foundation that enables innovation, change and improvements in health care delivery,” Ms Halton said.

The PCEHR system is slowly picking up momentum.

Over 85,000 people and more than 1470 provider organisations have registered. And 1700 individual providers have been granted authorisation links, Ms Halton said. 

Journalist and broadcaster Julie McCrossin was Master of Ceremonies for the event. She told guests at Tuesday evening’s conference dinner that the the PCEHR was needed to improve the health care of older Australians. 

Depending on your location, even within the same city, when you call an ambulance you could up at a different hospital with a different medical record, she said.

Ms McCrossin told the story of a family friend in her nineties who was given a drug she was allergic to upon emergency admission to hospital because she was unable to disclose her allergy. 

The woman signed up for a PCEHR almost as soon as it was launched knowing a future common record accessible from anywhere could prevent it happening again, Ms McCrossin said.

While the benefits of the PCEHR are obvious to many, the human element is lacking from the conversation, Ms McCrossin said. She encouraged delegates to tell MPs and decision makers the human story they’ll understand. 

“It’s about human relationships. It’s about change and adaption,” she said.

Technology takes time

In response to concern uptake of the PCEHR has been slow, Ms Halton said it was important to understand now is just the beginning of the journey and technology takes a while to take hold.  

“People who expected 23 million to register for a PCEHR on day one have no idea of technology,” she said.

Canberra hospital will this week be first public hospital able to upload discharge summary data to the PCEHR, Ms Halton said.

Delegates heard from an audience member that St Vincents Hospital in Sydney has also recently started uploading discharge summaries to the PCEHR system.

In the future, levereging off other national systems such as Medicare and the central PBS and immunisation registers will be provide immense benefits when linked, she said.

Building on the foundations, Ms Halton said PCEHR enhancements, including a mobile gateway and notification of a linked account, is coming next.

Also rolling out to 187 pharmacies in May is the National Prescription and Dispense Repository, featuring a detailed medication history, medications brand and prescribed strength, dosage and dates for prescription and expiration.

DoHA’s Deputy Secretary – Chief Information & Knowledge Officer, Paul Madden (pictured), also said stressed the uptake of technology took time.  

He said the PCEHR system was coming along well, probably better than expected, giving it a score of seven to seven and a half out of ten.

The online registration process is now working smoothly, he said. 

Going forward, Mr Madden said the biggest problem is system availability as the ehealth records increase and are being accessed by health professionals around the clock.

“The challenge at a technology level is how do we get to a point … where we can do those release processes and take away the possibility of turning the system down.”

Telehealth

Mr Madden said they were quite proud of how the healthcare community, particularly rural and remote, have taken advantage of telehealth.

As at the end of 2012, there had been 61,000 telehealth consultations, involving 7200 practitioners and 28,000 patients, he said.

However, there is still more work to do to determine what ongoing support is needed to ensure the uptake of telehealth continues to increase, Mr Madden said.

Visit www.ehealthinfo.gov.au to register for and find about more about the PCEHR.