Today’s Herald Sun was possibly pushing the issue a touch with its suggestion that “A hi-tech health plan to deliver better treatment to patients could be derailed by a standoff between doctors and the Rudd Government”.
There isn’t a standoff as far as we know … yet. And while it’s by no means out of the question that there will be an almighty contretemps if doctors are expected to foot the bill while the nation trims – according to the story – $8 billion off the national health bill, a spokesman for the Australian Medical Association says that at the moment it is “still working with the government and NEHTA“.
Indeed, just a couple of weeks ago, at a dinner I attended in Canberra, AMA president Dr Andrew Pesce indicated that he was “very happy with the way the NEHTA agenda is progressing”.
The Herald Sun story makes a good deal of a comment by Department of Health secretary Ms Jane Halton before a Senate estimates committee last week:
One of the things I genuinely hope, quite frankly, is that patients will go to the doctor and say, “Why can’t we get this stuff electronically now? I understand there is the potential. Why can’t we?”
Those of us who have spent any time at all poring over the bureaucratic runes in an attempt to divine the magical workings of the government mind are likely at times to see a good deal more significance in the comments of senior public servants than the average observer.
But while Ms Halton’s mind works at a vastly higher clock speed than mine, I’m struggling to see her comments – as they appear to have been widely taken – as a subtle indication that Canberra really imagines that medical practitioners will be happy to pull out their credit cards and pay for whatever software and hardware, training and technical support are going to be necessary.
While one hopes devoutly that you have better things to do with your time than perusing Senate estimates committee transcripts, we’d be terribly relieved if you could rectify our thinking, and explain to us just how they relate to who is paying for what.
And if you’d like to debate the issue of who should pay, and how much all this ehealth is likely to cost, we’d love to welcome you to the forum.
