Karen Dearne Australian IT | /May 29, 2007/ Ill feeling over health forum snub
FOUR overturned chairs on the podium marked the absence of National E-Health Transition Authority representatives at a Medical Software Industry Association roundtable in Sydney last week. Leading software developers were stunned to learn that NEHTA had declined to attend, citing late notice, as the event was supposed to be a relationship-building exercise. NEHTA communications manager Lisa Smith wrote a letter advising that the agenda placed "an emphasis on reviewing NEHTA's activities, so it would have been appropriate to seek our input into the agenda, and confirm our involvement, prior to its public circulation". Ms Smith said "NEHTA would like to encourage the MSIA to take a positive and collaborative approach", but "given the circumstances, we are not in a position to contribute speakers or attendees at this late stage". For the frustrated organisers, it appeared to be one more occasion when the opportunity to "engage" was lost. MSIA president Vincent McCauley said the promise for NEHTA was rapid delivery of a national health informatics plan, but industry momentum had stalled on common terminologies for medications and clinical events, patient-provider directories and interconnectivity standards. When NEHTA was established, Australia held a pre-eminent position in Health Level 7, recently endorsed as the national health messaging standard. "The idea was to build on our successes, principally in the areas of electronic health records, openEHR and HL7," he said. "Six of our members were working at the highest level in HL7 forums. "Today, none of those people are attending international meetings." Volunteer participation in the Standards Australia IT-014 health software committees has also fallen away. Dr McCauley said one problem was a decision to exclude industry from an active role in NEHTA despite a recommendation by consultants who also helped set up Canada's Infoway. "We should rue that decision, because Infoway has been extremely successful," he said. "The industry has been involved right from the start, and e-health systems are actually being rolled out across Canada." In Australia, meanwhile, NEHTA began operation without "knowledge of the industry's strengths and capabilities". "The approach basically was to wipe everything already in place, and implement a paradigm shift," Dr McCauley said. "It has taken three years to come to the conclusion that healthcare is highly conservative and safety conscious. "Doctors do not leap into doing something new without evidence that it is safe." AushealthIT blogger David More told the forum he hoped a planned review of NEHTA would provide an independent report card. "They still don't have an operational strategic plan, business case or implementation plan for the delivery of the outcomes sought by Australia's health ministers in August 2004," Dr More said. "Given the public policy and standards role NEHTA is meant to play, there should be totally open processes and all strategic advice should be made available for public comment and feedback." A NEHTA spokeswoman confirmed there was no one available to attend the MSIA roundtable last week. NEHTA is holding a vendor workshop in Brisbane today. Oliver Frank, general practitioner 255 North East Road, Hampstead Gardens South Australia 5086 Ph. 08 8261 1355 Fax 08 8266 5149 M 0407 181 683 _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
