HISA Newsletter 23/07/08

Dear HISA Member

With the current financial turmoil consuming our daily attention it is easy to overlook some of the major eHealth activities which are progressing. NEHTA is transitioning to a new CEO, with Peter Fleming taking over the reins, we have the much awaited Deloitte's national eHealth strategy report close to completion, also the Victorian Government has just released its progress on the "Whole of Health Information and Communication Technology Strategy, 2009-13" and there is an eHealth submission from the Health and Hospitals reform Commission in development. Overlaying all of this are the Health Minister's discussions on how healthcare should be delivered at a primary and community care level and the release of the discussion paper by the National Preventative Health Task Force. There is a high level of activity with some expectations of significant output in the near future

In parallel with all this activity , we have the Federal Government reviewing the Australian Law Reform Commission's submission on privacy laws, which contains a significant emphasis on health information privacy. This is an issue that the health informatics community needs to engage with. We need to ensure the appropriate regulations are established that will maximise the benefits delivered through the eHealth strategies and plans that are in development.

As HISA members this means we have some immediate work to do in developing policy inputs around privacy and eHealth in community care, as well as setting aside some time later in the year to review and develop feedback on the series of important strategy reports which we expect to come out in the next few months.

We live in interesting times and I look forward to hearing your input as we develop this work over the next few months. For the present, the Privacy Conference is the most important opportunity we have to bring members together and develop feedback and guidance for the government. More about this in the newsletter.

Best Regards

Brendan

Brendan Lovelock
CEO
Health Informatics Society of Australia

 

Health Privacy Futures Conference

Engaging the broader population on privacy policy is always a tough task. We usually decide how to deal with an issue based on our current perceptions formed through our past experiences. Well, you can say this is a good thing, we can learn much from our past behaviors and they are usually good predictors of our future actions.

However, this approach progressively breaks down when our decisions have an increasingly significant impact on what the future will look like. That is, where we are making a transformational set of decisions.

The potential changes in health privacy encompasses one of those transformational sets of decisions. Sitting here, in our largely paper based, information isolated world, the decisions about privacy look fairly simple. they are all about improved care at a lower cost with fewer human resources, who would oppose these things. Sure there are some smaller groups where improved information sharing may have a negative impact, but these are the minority.

But, what happens when the minority now, represents the majority of the future. To make our decisions about privacy we need to look at what our future world may look like. It doesn't take any special insight to see a future where information is readily available. More importantly, not just information, but knowledge, that is, the easy ability to assemble related pieces of data from dispersed sources in a form that answers your particular query.

If we are in this environment, how do we now want our health information to be handled. The ability of future systems to extract and interconnect information brings the capability to deliver prejudice and injustice as well as the benefits we know so well. We need to think very carefully now, about the information environment we want to create in the future.

This argument is not to say we should become overprotective with privacy regulation, but it does mean we should become involved in the discussion. The decisions that are made in the next year or so will form an important part of the way we live in future. These could be transformational changes and as such require us to break away from our past perceptions, to look forward at what the future will be like and make decisions on that basis.

I am not advocating any particular direction the health privacy discussion should take. I am just advocating that we make a knowledgeable decision about the direction that we take.

If you do want to become involved in the health privacy discussion, then come along to the Health Privacy Futures conference. This event has been established to bring together the leading minds in health privacy in Australia, to educate the delegates on the issues and engage them in the providing guidance to the government in their current deliberations on privacy legislation and regulation.

The Health Privacy Futures Conference will be held in Brisbane from Nov 11-12. You can find out more about the conference at http://www.healthprivacy.org.au or call HISA on 03-9388-0555.

 

Preventative Health

As I mentioned in a recent HISA News Alert, The National Preventative Health Task Force's released its first report "Australia the Healthiest Country by 2020" (Click here to download) and have requested feedback for community groups.   This provides an important opportunity for health informaticians to become involved in delivering thought leadership on the options for supporting public health strategies through Health IT systems.

We have received some strong support from members and nonmembers looking to become involved in this project, but we are still looking for additional people to participate. We are looking for people will to contribute ideas and assist in creating a submission (we just love people who can write...but it is ok if you can't) If you would like to support this project then drop me an email (click here to email) or call me on 03-9388-0555.

 

The Health CIO in 2015

HISA Vic branch will be holding a joint meeting with the Austin Centre for Applied Clinical Informatics (ACACI). The meeting theme is "The Health CIO in 2015" and the seminar will have Hospital CIO's sharing their visions for health over the next 7 years. This promises to be a compelling event, so make sure you RSVP (call HISA on 03-9388-0555) now and book your place. click here to download a brochure.

 

HISA Vic Annual General Meeting

After the HISA Vic/ACACI meeting HISA Vic will be holding their Annual General Meeting. If you are interested in finding out more about HISA Vic or you are interested in getting involved with supporting health Informatics in Victoria then you stay for the AGM.

The HISA Vic group is provides the opportunity for getting involved in some stimulating activities and with a welcoming and supportive group of people who share a common vision on the importance of informatics to the wellbeing of our health system. You can click here to download a committee nomination form.

Nursing Informatics Australia Position Statement on Education

Education is the foundation of eHealth. Without it, a system, no matter how well designed or skilfully deployed will not be successful. This is particularly relevant in nursing, where staff are increasingly interacting with sophisticated information systems and training on these systems is not always satisfactory.

Nursing Informatics Australia is calling for a rethink of Informatics training in Australia, to make this training both comprehensive and within the core of the nursing education program. Click here to read their Education Position Statement.

 

HISA Website

You may have noticed that there have been some significant changes to the layout of the HISA website. We have introduced a new graphical theme to the site and we now have added a quick links section, to allow you to get to the important parts of the site quickly. There will be additional content layout changes coming in the next few months.

A new website function is the members archive section. This is collection of the important national and international eHealth reports that have been published over the past 10 years. You need to be logged in to view this section of the site, you can log in from the menu bar on the top right hand side of the site.

There will be additional members only content added over the coming months.

We hope you find these changes useful, if you have any comments on the site design or requests for additional content/functionality please send an email to webmaster@hisa.org.au

 

HIC'08 Meeting Presentations and Videos

Well the HIC'08 conference was a great success with over 800 attendees, treated to an outstanding line up of national and international keynotes all focused on the contribution of eHealth to patient centric healthcare. As always this was supported by a quality array of peer reviewed scientific papers and practical industry presentations.

All this content is now on them HISA website and www.hisa.org.au/hic08. We also have the interviews from the Expo TV programs that you can download. If you haven't been there yet I suggest you drop by and have a browse through some very interesting presentations

 

HIMSS AsiaPac09

Happening from 24-27 Feb 2009 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, HIMSS AsiaPac09 is organised by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), a not-for- profit and non-governmental, international healthcare membership organisation.

Positioned as an event providing needs-based solutions, HIMSS AsiaPac09 seeks to promote the optimal use of healthcare IT and management systems. It promises to be a place for intensive knowledge exchange where the best minds gather, and a platform for networking opportunities as leaders from healthcare, government and IT