Ian Haywood wrote: > On Tuesday 03 April 2007 10:44, Tim Churches wrote: > >> Yes, yes, fine, OK, whatever, but the political point that I am trying to >> make is that building a capable and very sound open-source primary care EMR >> for Australia is *not* a few afternoons work, not even for Horst, but *nor* >> is it a $100 million exercise. It is, instead, about 8 to 10 person-years >> effort by half a dozen smart people working full-time on the project over >> the course of 12-18 months of calendar time, at a total cost of $1.5 to $2 >> million. I can think of no more cost-effective investment to improve of our >> nation's health than that, because it would save hundreds of millions by >> simplifying the creation of shared EHRs and other initiatives, > > Money is not the issue, Tim, if you could build an EMR from the snot on the > end of Tony Abbott's nose he would not give it to you: Liberal minsters do > not go around nationalising whole sections of the medical IT industry, the > pros and cons really don't matter for him.
Agreed that there is little chance of this being funded by the current government. > Health Minister Gillard may listen politely, show her the pop-up ads on MDW > and you might just get her pissed off enough to make an exemption to what is > now 20 years of the pro-private State ideology (shared by both parties) and > fund it, but honestly I'm doubtful. Or Health Min Roxon. I agree it is only an outside chance but nevertheless possible. Funding by a corporate sponsor may also be possible. Would that mean adverts displaying on screen? Definitely not. Would it mean a poster in the waiting room which says "The computer software used in this practice is proudly sponsored by HCF/Medibank Australia/MBF/Pfizer/whatever."? Yes, probably. But people need to believe that such an initiative is both possible and desirable for it to happen. Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
