Reply about this received from the President of the MSIA.
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Standards for software used in general practice Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:36:15 +1100 From: Vincent McCauley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Dear Oliver, Thank you for your enquiry re MSIA and standards for software in General Practice The MSIA has been at the forefront of development of standards in Australia for many years. 1. Standards Australia MSIA has been represented on IT-14 (the peak e-Health standards committee) for at least 5 years (when my involvement began) and in the past by a General Practitioner (Peter Schloeffel) MSIA members provide significant input as active members of at least the following committees (though this is not comprehensive): IT 14- 6 (Messaging) IT14-6-5 Diagnostic messaging (Pathology/Radiology ordering and results) IT 14-6-6 Collaborative Care Communications (REF message) IT14-9 and IT 14-9-2 EHR IT 14-2 Health Concept representation MSIA has been instrumental in getting diagnostic messaging to the point where it is widely used in private practice and have been promoting the implementation and use of e-referral via the REF message standard. MSIA has been a joint sponsor since its inception of the HISA/HL7 HIC Interoperability demonstration showcasing implementations of Diagnostic and Referral messaging as well Health Identifiers and various standardised models of EHR including OpenEHR. MSIA has encouraged domains implementing messaging to be compliant by its support for AHML's message testing facility and opposing attempts by specific interest groups (e.g. NSW Health's non-compliant REF message implementation) to go their own way. 2. NeHTA Medications Terminology - A joint MSIA/HL7 task force, following a week long hot-house workshop, formulated an agreed medication terminology in 2004 at the request of DoHA. This was handed to NeHTA as its first work item in late 2004, to populate. We have yet to see any usable outcome from this process. A proposal from MSIA to populate the model using existing industry processes was rejected despite its low cost (compared with the NeHTA process) and its proposed 6 month delivery schedule. SNOMED - MSIA has long been supportive of the use of a common terminology for e-Health and welcomed the adoption of SNOMED. However we were extremely disappointed that the subsequent Australian SNOMED licence negotiated by NeHTA (without industry consultation) was not commercially viable. Despite approaches by MSIA, legal opinion about the problems with the licence and acknowledgment by NeHTA that this was an interim licence not intended for commercial use, there has been no further progress. NeHTA have however undertaken to provide a new, more commercially oriented SNOMED licence, in consultation with industry, once the International SNOMED Standards Organisation is fully established. NeHTA have further muddied the terminology water by recommending the use of SNOMED for pathology order and result codes. SNOMED is not used for this in any other domain (including the USA) as LOINC has been designed specifically for this purpose and has been successfully used for many years. LOINC is also the recommended terminology in the current Standards Australia diagnostic messaging standard (AS4700.2). MSIA have taken part in two joint industry meeting/workshops with NeHTA in the last year. In addition the chair of NeHTA was invited to address the MSIA AGM 2 years ago where he informed the local software vendors that cooperation and consultation with them was unnecessary as the large Internationals would be implementing the NeHTA agenda. MSIA has established a liaison officer with NeHTA to improve communication. However, despite these efforts, there has been a lack of effective interaction. NeHTA had the potential to break the deadlock of government indecision and cross-border issues related to the States, but has so far not been able to deliver usable solutions. 4. Government. MSIA is represented on the Medicare Stakeholder Consultation Group (SCG) and was also represented on its predecessors (SAC and DCG). In addition an MSIA observer attends ECLIPSE working group meetings but MSIA has been denied membership of this group despite representations to Medicare to be represented at either the working group or Board level. MSIA has encouraged Medicare to use standards wherever possible in its software offerings. However, Medicare has chosen not to do so and this has been a major factor in the high cost of implementing and maintaining claiming solutions, including setting up their own software certification process. Medicare is not even able to supply the MBS schedule in anything other than its own "home grown" format. PBS have recently liaised with the MSIA to implement PBS Online and availability of the PBS schedule and yellow book as an XML file. This work has been happening for over 2 years in the PBS Online and Pharmbiz joint MSIA/PBS working groups and has resulted in delivery of this information in a standardised (XML), industry agreed format downloadable from the web. Unfortunately the hoped for Australian Medicines Terminology has not been able to be incorporated into this work. MSIA, along with other industry groups, was instrumental in getting the Federal Government to put in place last year an Industry Action plan for e-Health. One of the central tenets of the Action Plan is implementation and certification of Standards. Unfortunately, since its approval by Federal Cabinet last year, DoHA have not moved forward with the Action Plan. I am hoping a series of planned meetings with the DoHA later this month will produce some "action". DoHA at present has copyright over a number of software products developed by MSIA members based on standards. These products such as the e-Redbook, e-Lifescripts and Integrated Care Program were DoHA and in some cases GP funded, and it was the stated intention that they should be released to the medical software community as standardised building blocks for processes such as incorporation of electronic clinical guidelines. This however has not occurred despite the elapse of a number of years and approaches by MSIA to DoHA. Release of these products would be a major contribution to standards based interoperability. 5. IHE - Integrating the Health Enterprise. This process for integrating existing standards to provide an interoperability profile is well entrenched in the USA and Europe. It is a User lead, Industry driven process. MSIA has joined with HL7 and HISA to promote IHE in Australia as a means of standards based interoperability commencing 2 years ago. However, it has proven difficult to get User and Government buy in and this is an on-going focus. 6. MSIA formed an interoperability sub-committee last year chaired by John Johnston from Pen Computers. A report from this group on the way forward to an industry standard for data export from heterogenous desktop systems will be presented at the MSIA Roundtable to be held in May. The major desktop vendors and Ocean Informatics are part of this sub-committee. I hope that is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like any clarification. Regards Vince Dr Vincent McCauley MB BS, Ph.D President, MSIA ----- Original Message ----- From: "Oliver Frank" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 4:57 AM Subject: Standards for software used in general practice
Dear Vince, There is currently a discussion amongst GPs on email discussion list about why there are no Australian Standards for clinical software used by Australian GPs, when there are Australian Standards for many other goods and services. I understand that the Standards published by Standards Australia are developed when an industry decides that there should be some Standards for its goods or services, and that the industry funds the development of the Standards. What is MSIA's policy about Standards for clinical software used by Australian GPs and what are its activities in this area? Does MSIA believe that there should be standards for clinical software used by Australian GPs? If not, why not? If MSIA believes that there should be standards for clinical software used by Australian GPs, what has it done in the past and what is it doing currently towards creating and implementing suitable Standards? I would like to share your answer with my GP colleagues. I look forwards to MSIA's reply. -- 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
-- 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 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
