Apology for cross-posting. Chris Hogan wrote:
I am up at the GP & PHC Conference where naturally the topic turned to Health Informatics. At a Forum I asked one of the Federal Mandarins why GP computing was not progressing after such a great start. He mumbled then our Oliver got up & got stuck into him! The coup de grace came when the moderator Norman Swan tried to fob him off with a remark about the AMA when Oliver riposted that an a recent AMA meeting indicated that NETA was a dead duck that was no longer responsive to the Govt & did not even turn up to a recent important meeting to which they had been invited! I thought the Mandarin was going to choke!
Chris, thanks for reporting about what happened at this session. It may be useful for me to give a little more detail.
The mandarin was Richard Eccles, who is First Assistant Secretary in the Primary and Ambulatory Care Division of the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. He is in charge of e-health amongst other things. He was participating in a panel discussion at a plenary session entitled "Are we fair dinkum about getting research into policy and practice when it comes to chronic disease management?". During the time for questions and comments from the audience, several people, including Chris Hogan, stated that the lack of progress in health informatics in Australia was significantly inhibiting improvements in the care of people with chronic diseases and conditions. In reply, Mr. Eccles listed some of what had been achieved to date and added that the Commonwealth was working "slowly" on addressing the outstanding issues in health informatics (at which point I had to stop myself from shouting "WHY?"). He was not challenged about this statement until after some more questions and answers on other topics, when I got up and told him and the audience that he had gotten off far too lightly with his reply. I said that the Commonwealth was failing in its efforts to improve health information management in Australia and that its creation NeHTA was seen as secretive, unaccountable and severely underperforming. I told the audience that NeHTA had refused to attend the Medical Software Industry Association's Round Table meeting on the previous day, and that at the Round Table NeHTA's poor performance, secretive approach and dictatorial attitude had been strongly criticised. Mr. Eccles replied that NeHTA is accountable and that he would like to discuss this with me after the session. However, before the session ended, it was announced that Mr. Eccles would have to leave immediately and therefore would not be able to discuss matters raised in the session.
This account is based on my recollection of what was said. If others who were there feel that I have misrepresented what was said, I am happy for them to say what they heard.
During the remainder of the GP&PHC Conference a number of people congratulated me for standing up and saying what they also felt about the Commonwealth's failure to advance health informatics in Australia. I told them about the Action Agenda document that the MSIA had prepared at the Commonwealth's request last year and which has been approved by Cabinet but which is languishing on somebody's desk in Canberra. Several of the people who spoke to me supporting what I had said at the plenary session suggested that if the MSIA would circulate this document, it may be able to form the basis of a joint proposal from the medical profession and the MSIA. They felt that such a joint document would carry much greater force than previous separate statements of what each group believe needs to be done.
On a slightly different but related matter, I have wanted for some time to find ways for the MSIA to able to communicate more closely with the end users of its members' products and services. I would like the MSIA to encourage end users who wish to address all software vendors with their ideas and suggestions by setting up an easy way to do so. This may as simple as a prominent invitation on the MSIA's Web site to do so, with an email address to which to write. If something like this is set up and end users do write with ideas and suggestions, it will be important that the MSIA a) promptly acknowledges the message, and b) circulates it to all members.
Although I am fairly active in health informatics committees and discussion forums, I have seen very little or no communication from the MSIA to the medical profession. I have asked the MSIA whether there is any reason why it could not or would not consider emailing say a quarterly report or bulletin to the RACGP, AMA, AGPN (formerly ADGP), ACCRM, other medical organisations and the GPCG email discussion list about current issues and activities?
-- 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
