Oliver Frank wrote: > 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.
Yes, many thanks to Ian for his selfless and tireless work on various Standards Australia committees - I know that Ian does not do it for the fun involved. I intended no criticism of Ian's or other's efforts in that respect, only observations about the process. > 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. Exactly! Hit the nail on the head! Thus health IT standards may not be an ideal fit for the standard Standards Australia way of doing business. > 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. Of course, I should have included Oliver on that list. Apologies to everyone I failed to mention - there are many others! Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
