Quote Of The Year

Timeless Quotes - Sadly The Late Paul Shetler - "Its not Your Health Record it's a Government Record Of Your Health Information"

or

H. L. Mencken - "For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

Monday, June 08, 2009

Update on Ms Roxon Plan. This is Really Very Badly Thought Out!

Here is more coverage:

No health card privacy issue - Roxon

Updated: 14:27, Monday June 8, 2009

Health Minister Nicola Roxon says there should be no privacy concerns over plans for a new medical card, designed to store a patients records on one computer chip.

She says the idea would not be compulsory and the patient can say what they do and don't want on their health card.

Text here:

http://www.skynews.com.au/business/article.aspx?id=339989

And here:

Govt developing all-purpose health card

17:15 AEST Mon Jun 8 2009

24 minutes ago

The federal government is considering developing a healthcare card that records medical histories but allows the cardholder to control who accesses the information.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon stressed the card would be nothing like the former coalition government's proposed access card.

The coalition's access card was designed to replace the Medicare card and would have been compulsory for any Australian who wanted to access around 16 other government health and welfare services.

However, the plan was abandoned after concerns were raised about the card's security after a government-appointed taskforce found it could be read by anyone with a card scanner.

Text here:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/health/823004/govt-developing-all-purpose-health-card

Just why released on a public holiday do you think?

Marbles are all over the place here and it is very, very sad.

More tomorrow.

David.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Back to this old chestnut. Health records on smartcards? A standardised smartcard health record interface for every health application? Patchy records? Incomplete records? Voluntary records? 200MB angiograms? Patient managed health records? Locked cards? Lost cards? Replacement cards? It all has to be on-line anyway? Passwords/PINs for people with Alzheimers and Dementia? There are so many ways that it will not work! Can't wait to find out which genius has come up with this one ...

Anonymous said...

Permit me to enlighten you about "which genius has come up with this one ... "

The Minister knows little about ehealth issues. The Minister is beholden to her advisers. Unfortunately the Minister's advisers are the wrong people to be advising her. So, the wrong people are advising the Minister about a highly complex subject (ehealth) and she, despite all her good intentions and limited understanding of this field, has to accept what they tell her. Her speech writer (again with very limited knowledge) interprets what the Minister is being told and the Minister, in good faith, spouts it forth for the masses to absorb. And so the old chestnuts are reborn once more and whole cycle of ineptitude starts all over again.