E-health systems over-complicated: Scott

Graham Smith

Mr Scott, chairman of PCA NU Systems and former vice-president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, spoke to pharmacists and doctors about the e-health environment onboard the Sigma Mediterranean Cruise yesterday.
 
The possibilities offered by technology were endless, he said, and yet a universal scheme had yet to come to fruition despite the transformations technology has made in other areas of life.

Mr Scott said the Government’s national e-health transitional authority (NEHTA) was already devising technical architecture that over-complicated the process. He drew an analogy with cars which were once basic and effective but which now have a multiplicity of unnecessary features.

"I don’t want all those bells and whistles with e-health. What I want is something that’s simple, a universal product for everybody that works for everybody," he told delegates.

"NEHTA is preparing standards and mechanisms of communication between various groups and it’s terrifying. It’s developing all of these standards and methods of communication and we haven’t even got off the ground yet. Please can we get on and try and get this stuff to work for us before you start telling us what to do?" he said. 

Mr Scott cited the Access Card, currently being developed to store patient medical information, as an example of a simple concept that would have a dramatic effect on health outcomes and deliver efficiencies for government.
 
"The Access Card is already on its way. Government is introducing it because the cost of running the [social welfare] system is $100 billion a year in payments. There’s enormous savings because if the government can identify people better they can make sure the people that need the services get them. There are also enormous administrative efficiencies as the new card will replace up to 17 cards and will become available to fifty thousand practitioners."

The participation of health practitioners in developing e-health systems was crucial, he said.

"We’ve got to make sure that when things are being delivered we collaborate on them – the professions, government and software providers – and we adopt common goals and look for the things we want to deliver for ourselves and for the public. We don’t want some academic or IT person telling us what we want."

Building a universal and effective system needn’t be difficult, he said, as the communication channels were already in place.

"It is crucial for government to make it simple. Help us, don’t hinder us. Let’s make the software that is useful to us and doesn’t just put another level of compliance on us."