As I have pointed out in the past, there’s a widespread view that HCN shot itself in the foot when it declined NEHTA’s invitation to join the desktop vendors’ panel, on the grounds that the funding being offered to make Medical Director compliant with the government’s ehealth standards was “just laughable“.
It seemed pretty clear that if Medical Director were to avoid losing ground to its competitors, it would have to do the work in any case … and it wasn’t going to take anything like the 10 to 15 staff years that CEO John Frost claimed in what was his then characteristic gunslinging style.
That particular shoe has now apparently dropped, with the story in Pulse IT that Medical Director has now gained health identifiers functionality, and the vital Clinical Document Architecture capabilities that will allow users to receive hospital discharge summaries and exchange referrals [and eventually, presumably, follow-ups] with specialists and allied health professionals.
There is also evidence that HCN has put away its six-shooter and – unlike the MSIA, which is still engaging in alarums and excursions via The Australian – is speaking very positively about the government’s ehealth agenda.
“HCN is committed to the government’s eHealth strategy and will ensure that those aspects of eHealth that are important to our customers and their patients are delivered,” CEO John Frost told Pulse IT.
“Over coming years the increased use of IHIs will, we expect, have a profoundly positive effect on reducing the incidence of misidentification which today is a major cause of medical misadventure.”
So much for Karen Dearne’s increasingly frantic Henny Penny exercises.
{ 1 comment }
This is a very welcome development, but I’d love to know what is going on beneath the surface! HI’s were announced more than two years ago and the HI service was launched more than 18 months ago. It has taken until now for any visible progress, and suddenly ‘hey, presto!’ a whole bunch of software vendors can handle HI’s! Of course, with no warning of these announcements most practices and practitioners won’t have applied for their HPI-O’s and HPI-I’s so there will be a further delay before any benefits accrue while GPs and others jump through various bureaucratic hoops, and wade through the legal minefield.
And just what did CEO John Frost have in mind when he said “HCN .. will ensure that those aspects of eHealth that are important to our customers and their patients are delivered”?
[One small correction: HCN's announced features won't allow users to "exchange referrals and followups" because 1) the CDA support is receive only and 2) there is still no secure messaging in place. But perhaps we can hope for some announcements on these matters also.]
Comments on this entry are closed.