On Thursday 31 May 2007 17:38:04 Ken Harvey wrote: > 72. It is critical that health providers can communicate effectively > with each other while maintaining patient confidentiality. Labor will > provide leadership in the development of national, secure health data > standards and will establish a common framework for health record > systems. The delay in establishing this infrastructure is inhibiting the > delivery of quality health services in Australia and contributing to > unnecessary adverse events.
Sounds great on paper, as manifestoes often do. However I can't help but be reminded of the ALP's clause IV analogue: "the socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange." Indeed the two are related. Medical electronic comms is a classic and severe case of market-failure, decisive government intervention is required (funding an open-source EHR would be nice but not required, just picking a standard off the shelf will do), however it is still effectively nationalisation: the existing market in health comms is built around the lack of a standard and so would be destroyed. Ken, show me a labour government that follows Party policy for a day, an hour, a minute, and I'll listen, but until then I'm very sceptical. Ian Haywood _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
