Last week CHIK Services conducted their annual Health IT conference (Health-e-Nation 2006). The slides and materials from this very useful gathering are now available on the web.
Of particular interest was one line in the presentation from Dr Ian Reineke (CEO, NEHTA). In this he says that the momentum for e-health is rising and that "The stage is set for Governments to consider a national system of electronic health records".
Reading this I must say I almost choked on my Wheaties. To my certain knowledge the stage for this was set in 1997 with a House of Representatives enquiry followed in 1999 by a large report recommending what eventually became HealthConnect in 2001/2.
Nine years into "consideration of national EHRs" we are now told the stage is set for what must be re-consideration, given the passage of almost a decade!
More than that we have the NEHTA Chairwoman (Ms Patricia Faulkner) tell us that we will all have a Shared EHR at some point in the future but that it will be six-eight years into the future.
What has happened to all the work done thus far and all the money spent. One can only assume very little since we are now to "re-consider".
The truths obvious from all this is are:
1. No national plan for Shared EHRs currently exists.
2. Those considering e-Health and Shared EHRs know they won't be around six to eight years from now to have to account for their level of success in delivery this time when what is happening now is reviewed.
3. Unless there are real funds to support develop the Shared EHR in next months Budget we can be sure "six to eight" years is an optimistic estimate of the likely time frames.
I look forward to being found to be wrong, but I doubt it.
David
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