This just arrived.
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Canada Health Infoway (Infoway) is very pleased to inform you of our allocation of $500 million in the recently announced 2009 Federal Budget. There is no doubt the infusion of these funds will have a positive effect on Canada from both a health care and an economic perspective.
Over the next two years, Canadians can expect to see the positive impact of our efforts to modernize health care with information technology. Not only will this funding go a long way in supporting e-Health projects throughout Canada, but it will also create tens of thousands of jobs across various sectors, including but not limited to the health IT industry.
Continued collaboration with all of our partners will remain critical to Canada’s continued success in implementing electronic health record (EHR) systems. To this end, we look forward to working with our partners as we redouble our efforts to forge ahead to accelerate the implementation of EHR systems across Canada. We will continue to keep you informed of major developments as they occur.
On behalf of Infoway and its partners, I want thank you for your continued support and encouragement. Your ongoing interest and contributions have been important to Infoway and the future of health care in Canada.
To find out more about electronic health record systems and the progress across Canada, visit us at www.infoway-inforoute.ca.
Yours truly,
Richard Alvarez
President and CEO
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We now have Australia as the hold out for delivering a major Health IT Investment plan among all the advanced democracies.
We also have NEHTA apparently thinking it can just arbitrarily change its mandate – despite having a written constitution that defines what it should do – and to be doing that in the absence of a published plan and any serious public consultation. This is public sector management of remarkably low responsibility and accountability. (See comments in previous blog).
As noted in the previous post we need to hear from the Federal Minister sooner rather than later as to just what is planned so industry and the public sector can plan how move on with some confidence.
David.
5 comments:
It is wrong to insinuate NEHTA can just arbitrarily change its mandate. For our Constitution to be changed the changes must be proposed by the Board of Directors and put before the Members for approval.
And given the Board is made up of public servants who answer to Ministers this would essentially have to be done with the agreement of AHMC and AHMAC I would expect. That, of itself, might just require some disclosure of the reasons for change and the implications of the change.
Also constitutional change would need to be reported to ASIC and made public - and until that has happened NEHTA should be doing what is it meant to be doing - not making it up as it goes along.
There is a process involved here which cannot just happen arbitrarily as you seem to think. It can change - but only under political control and that might not happen all that easily unless it is well explained given the funds already expended for no apparent outcomes so far.
David.
Canada, with a population of 33 million (60% larger than Australia’s) seems to be making sure and steady progress with ehealth. The $500 million in Canada’s budget 2009 probably equates to around $310 million for Australia.
Are we comparing apples with apples here? Over how many years is Canada’s $500 million to be allocated? If it is just 2009 then it would seem there really is a major discrepancy with NEHTA’s $218 million to be expended over 3 years from July 2009 to June 2012 ie. an average of $72 million per annum!
Notes:
Exchange Rate:
$1 CAD = $1.22567 AUD
Thus = $612.5 Million
The funds are over 2 years it seems and comes after over $1.0Billion C has already been spent (and matched).
The funds from the Federal Govt in Canada are usually matched 1:1 by the provinces.
So it is about $A300M per annum ($600M with provinces per annum) - 5+ times the NEHTA spend but we are not sure what the Australian States do in total. I doubt it is $250M+ in essentially capital spending per annum on e-Health.
David.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me Canada (through InfoWay) has long had an awareness and commitment to developing ehealth in the primary and community health care areas. In Australia, by comparison, the primary and community health care areas have had little or no focus with the main focus being on hospitals.
Is this because Canada and Australia have set up their ehealth Authorities differently in some way? They both seem to have a 1:1 Federal:Provinces (Federal:State) funding formula. So what is the real difference to account for apparent (?) divergence in progress that seems to have occurred between Canada and Australia? Basically both countries are dealing with the same problem(s)are they not?
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