PCEHR hits problems

January 22, 2012

I’ve just heard a disturbing report from the implementation community that some problems have arisen with the specifications for the PCEHR. I understand that the problems involve a discrepancy between some of the specifications released to the different wave sites, and that an announcement will be made this week. My information suggests that the problem [...]

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HCN gets competitive in ehealth roll-out

January 19, 2012

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 [...]

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Apathy and ehealth

January 16, 2012

I was chatting to a GP friend on Saturday night at a Royal Tennis presentation dinner [at which, wonder of wonders, I picked up a minor trophy], and was fascinated by her suggestion that one reason patients haven’t been active participants in their healthcare is that in too many cases they believe that they can [...]

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Telehealth and mHealth: some pros and cons

January 10, 2012

After that less than stellar performance in the Sunday Age [below] Tim Barlass redeems himself with a fascinating piece about a trial in rural NSW in which elderly patients given a broadband “medibox” which monitored details of blood pressure, heart rate, blood oxygen and weight and logged them remotely to doctors, demonstrated a dramatic decrease [...]

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Sunday Age suffers telehealth incompatibility

January 9, 2012

If you read the Sunday Age story on the $6000 grant to doctors to encourage them to participate in telehealth, you’d more than likely be convinced that it’s been one of those  gravy train fiascos in which incompetent politicians and bureaucrats paid doctors a lot of money to buy technology that they could – and in [...]

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A future of healthegadgets

January 5, 2012

Just a couple of days ago, Shanna Crispin was musing in eHealth Insider about the increasing popularity of pesonal electronic health gadgetry and speculating on a new generation of futuristic devices “from smart clothes to avatars that can support rehab patients”. Withings’ next advance on its blood pressure monitor for iOS devices that allows users not only [...]

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An unhappy New Year for CSC

December 28, 2011

It’s already been something of an annus horribilis for CSC, but the final days of 2011 have brought even worse news for the company’s shareholders, with the announcement that it might be forced to write off the $1.5 billion value of a disputed contract with the NHS. Over at eHealth Insider, there’s a summary of [...]

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Technology saving lives

December 22, 2011

I put this aside a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t get back to it, but the UK Department of Health’s Whole Systems Development program study which looked at the use of telehealth and telecare technologies indicated that people using home healthcare technologies have lower mortality rates, fewer emergency admissions, and shorter hospital stays is [...]

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PCEHR: running out of time?

December 19, 2011

Adam Cresswell’s piece in The Australian today is a refreshingly legitimate piece of reporting – unlike the work of his colleague, Karen Dearne, whose shock/horror/scandal/disaster stories never seem to get a run outside the IT pages. (I wonder why that might be?) Cresswell reports that the RACGP is seeking an urgent meeting with new Health [...]

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Wild ehealth imaginings

December 14, 2011

You have to wonder, sometimes, just how the people who are paid to interpret politics for us punters formulate their opinions. Shaun Carney’s piece in The Age this morning on Nicola Roxon’s shift of portfolios from Health Minister to Attorney-General, for instance, seemed completely at odds with my own observations. According to Shaun, “McClelland had [...]

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