Tim Churches wrote:
Where can I read the comments submitted by others on draft standards?
(...) potential volunteers need to be able to a) know what is going
on
(...) Australian standards, developed through
(...) one can see the work
programme for IT-014, and the list of nominating organisation for the
IT-014 committee, but there is no list of who is actually represented
and who the representatives are on the committee, and the meeting
minutes don't list who was present or who said what.
How can we harness contributions from people (...) who have lots of useful,
really practical things to contribute to
health IT standards development but no time to sit in committee meetings?
A spot of reform wouldn't go astray, methinks. What do others think?
I agree with Tim 100%. Standards Australia has done useful work in the
past, and I know that Ian Cheong has spent countless hours on its
committees, reading what are to me and most GPs mind-numbingly technical
documents, and helping to develop and revise the standards that are
needed. I am glad that we have people like Ian who are willing to do
this work, but it is now time to enable others with the energy,
interest, knowledge and skill also to participate in these processes and
to do so more fully and more easily.
I understand that the way that Standards Australia works is that the
industry for which standards are being developed funds the work and that
the members of that industry are represented on the committees
developing the standards. This helps to make the standards that are
developed acceptable to that industry and more likely to be adhered to
by the industry.
Our problem in health care is that we are not commercial operators whose
main business aim is to maximise our own profits, which for 'normal'
businesses is a perfectly ethical and legal aim in our current economic
system. For normal businesses, the development and implementation of
standards or higher standards can be expected ultimately to increase
profitability.
Instead, as GPs and other health professionals, we are providing an
essential public service and aiming only to make a reasonable living
while doing so. Our main aim in creating and implementing standards is
not to increase our own profitability. Therefore the funding to develop
the standards that we need has to come from some mixture of:
- from our patients who will benefit from their development and
implementation (how about a $1.00 'health informatics standards
development levy' added to the fee for every consultation and passed on
to our professional organisations?);
- from the health informatics industry (but the companies developing
software for Australian general practice seem lacking in enough capital
to contribute very much);
- from government, which is where I suppose NEHTA comes in;
- from time and energy donated by volunteer enthusiasts, like our
colleagues in Tim's list, and many others.
--
Oliver Frank, general practitioner
255 North East Road, Hampstead Gardens, South Australia 5086
Phone 08 8261 1355 Fax 08 8266 5149 Mobile 0407 181 683
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