Hi Tim,

The have totally dropped the ball on this one - to the extent that in the last 
few weeks 
they have been advertising for 3 pharmacists - not IT experience necessary - to 
work on it 
for the next 2 years - till June 2009.

It has not moved forward 1 inch since the MSIA and HL7 (I think) gave it to 
NEHTA 3 years 
ago. Two more years at least I am told!

Cheers

David

 ----
 Dr David G More MB, PhD, FACHI
 Phone +61-2-9438-2851 Fax +61-2-9906-7038
 Skype Username : davidgmore
 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 HealthIT Blog - www.aushealthit.blogspot.com


On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:45:21 +1000, Tim Churches wrote:
> Oliver Frank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> I've been pointed to:
>>
>> http://australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,21848256-15317,00.html
>>
>> E-health standards advance
>>
>> Karen Dearne | June 05, 2007
>> ...
>> Meanwhile, NEHTA clinical product design manager Kate Ebrill said the draft 
>> medications 
terminology for health messaging created by HL7 Australia and the
>> MSIA for the federal Health Department in 2004 (to support basic clinical 
communications) was being further developed as an extension to SNOMED CT.
>>
>> "A lot of the work we're doing is focused on taking that model and looking 
>> at what is 
required to make that sustainable, quality assured and deliverable in
>> Australia," she said.
>>
>> "We're also trying to co-ordinate various inputs around the Therapeutic 
>> Goods 
Administration and the PBS."
>>
>> Ms Ebrill said the model was initially intended to provide a terminology for 
>> health 
messaging, but "it could also be used in e-prescribing and dispensing
>> applications, as well as shared electronic health records".
>>
>> "We're developing a whole lot of products that will actually support health 
>> messaging, 
and terminologies is just one component of that," she said.
>>
>
> Hold on.... "draft medications terminology for health messaging created by 
> HL7 Australia 
and the MSIA for the federal Health Department in 2004"... "being
> further developed as an extension to SNOMED CT. "
>
> So, 3 years later, a national medications terminology is *still* being 
> developed? A 
completely fundamental building-block of clinical communications! I don't
> have any problem with NEHTA doing further work on a national medications 
> terminology in 
order to integrate it with SNOMED CT, or with NEHTA aligning inputs
> from the TGA and PBS, whatever that means. But is NEHTA saying that the 2004 
> medications 
terminology was so crappy that it was unusable? Is that the message?
> So crappy that it was better for people to use no medication terminology for 
> the last 
three years, or to just make up their own idiosyncratic medications
> lists and codes. Really?
>
> I think this illustrates a fundamental problem in health informatics - that 
> some future, 
perfect "goal state" continually triumphs over the Good Enough For
> Now. What people need to realise is that there is no Promised Land, and that 
> health 
informatics involves a continuous journey of change and improvement, and
> therefore it makes no sense to delay the deployment of the Good Enough, now, 
> in 
anticipation of the Much Better, at some time in the future. Let's have Good
> Enough, now, *and* Better, in the future. They are not mutually exclusive. 
> I've also 
observed that software and software deployments are treated like stone
> monuments, carefully built, over-engineered very often, as if they will have 
> to last for 
decades. They won't, it's all fleeting and epheremeral, gals and
> guys, today's cutting edge software is tomorrow's MS-DOS V1.0. So just get on 
> with it - 
sure, keep an eye on the long-term future but don't forget benefits
> to be had in the less-than-perfect-but better-than-no!
> w short- and medium-term future.
>
> Tim C
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