My Health Record to transform health care


By Dylan Bushell-Embling
Friday, 25 May, 2018

My Health Record to transform health care

Modernising health care for the digital era will require close collaboration between governments, consumers, clinicians and entrepreneurs, according to Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) CEO Tim Kelsey.

In an address to the National Press Club on Thursday, Kelsey said improving the safety and efficiency of health care through better use of data and technology is one of the top priorities for Australian governments.

Many clinicians are still relying on paper-based health care, which means that clinicians don’t always have access to the right information to make the best decision. Kelsey cited the example of a recent coronial inquiry in Melbourne into the death of a civil engineer which found that a critical medical test had been sent to the wrong fax number.

“Did you know in Australia more people will be hospitalised in a year due to medication misadventure than from car accidents? These errors occur in large part because health professionals don’t have access to timely, accurate data about the medical history of their patients — and neither do the patients themselves,“ he said.

The government’s My Health Record digital medical record project is aimed at addressing this challenge. Kelsey said the president of the Australian Medical Association has described My Health Record as “the future of medicine”.

My Health Record forms part of the government’s National Digital Health Strategy. Kelsey said the strategy, a joint initiative of the federal, state and territory governments with input from consumer and clinical peak bodies and industry representatives, has set a number of ambitious outcomes.

These include ensuring that all Australians have a mobile My Health Record by the end of the year — up from around 5.7 million today — unless they choose to opt out. In 2019, the strategy aims to ensure every clinician has a secure means of digital communication with colleagues.

The strategy also aims to ensure that the first regions in Australia will have connected all care services by 2022, ensuring information sharing across administrative, organisational and clinical borders.

The government soon plans to launch an information campaign to educate Australians about the benefits of digital health, and explain the opt-out process, which will start on 16 July and run for a three-month period.

After this deadline digital health records will be created for every Australian who did not opt out and start automatically populating with clinical information such as the last two years of Medicare and PBS benefits data.

To safeguard security and privacy, individuals will be able to view a real-time audit log of those who have viewed their records and be automatically alerted via SMS or email. Patients can also choose to withhold a document from their clinician.

“My Health Record has a range of protocols, which mean that all instances of access by a clinician are attributable directly to them and recorded in real time,” Kelsey said. “Unauthorised access is subject to a custodial prison sentence of up to two years.”

My Health Record has also been designed to comply with the strictest cybersecurity standards and is subject to independent audits from the Australian Signals Directorate. The agency has also set up a National Cyber Security Centre to conduct constant multilayered surveillance of the system.

While the government has agreed to allow secondary use of My Health Record data to support public health improvement and clinical research, the solely commercial use of the data will be prohibited. Individuals will also have the right to opt out of having their data used for these purposes at the press of a button.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/BillionPhotos.com

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