This appeared a few days ago:
Govt delivery of digital services to face Senate inquiry
Broad terms of reference to scrutinise "all the digital failures"
The government’s delivery of digital services will be scrutinised in a Senate inquiry which is due to report by the end of the year.
The terms of reference for the inquiry, referred to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee yesterday, are far reaching, and include an assessment of present and planned projects with regards to privacy, security, reliability and value for money.
The inquiry will also investigate the strategies behind whole-of-government digital transformation.
The governance, design, build and procurement of digital projects will be probed, as well as “the adequacy of available capabilities both within the public sector and externally”.
Moved in the Senate by Labor Senator Jenny McAllister, the inquiry was unsuccessfully opposed by government.
In a statement, McAllister said there needed to be an examination of “why so many projects have failed, been cancelled or crashed”.
“Despite all the digital failures the Turnbull Government has remained silent as services crash and projects go off the rails. The Australian public deserves to know what went wrong and how it can be fixed,” she said.
“Without proper oversight the Turnbull Government will just continue to preside over more failures and the Australian public’s trust in digital transformation will slide further.”
Queensland Coalition Senator James McGrath argued the inquiry would result in “unnecessary use of time and money” and that the government had already initiated a review of all projects over $10 million, and all critical business systems, the results of which "would be released shortly".
More here:
As well an enquiry on the Medicare Number leak. See here:
Australia's HPOS Medicare review opened for public consultation
Just over a month into the review of the country's HPOS system, the Australian government has called for public consultation.
The Australian government has opened its review into the Health Professional Online Services (HPOS) system, releasing a discussion paper on Friday for public consultation.
The review, announced last month, is expected to consider the balance between appropriate access to Medicare card numbers for health professionals to confirm patients' Medicare eligibility with the security of patients' Medicare card numbers.
It will also review a citizen's -- and a health professional's -- access to Medicare card numbers via the HPOS system and the accompanying telephone channel.
HPOS, introduced in 2009, is currently used 45,000 times daily, and allows medical practitioners and health providers to look up Medicare details when a person does not have a Medicare card on them.
The discussion paper, Independent Review of Health Providers' Access to Medicare Card Numbers, is asking for submissions from interested parties that detail their views on the review panel's draft recommendations.
Although the review -- headed by professor Peter Shergold, and comprising also the president of the Australian Medical Association Dr Michael Gannon; Dr Kean-Seng Lim, also from the Australian Medical Association; and president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Dr Frank Jones -- is yet to be completed, the panel has made a total of 11 recommendations.
The recommendations fall into four categories: Health professional channels to access Medicare card numbers, protecting the security of Medicare card numbers in the community, identity requirements when accessing health services, and the use of the Medicare card as evidence of identity.
"The review panel has identified a number of measures that could assist in strengthening the security of Medicare card information. As the review is still in progress, these are not final recommendations, and they may be dropped, refined, or supplemented based on stakeholder consultation and further briefings," the paper [PDF] states.
"Responses to the discussion paper will assist the review panel to refine their views as they form their recommendations to government in their final report."
In total, the paper poses 12 questions based on the recommendations made thus far, with the first asking respondents if patients have sufficient control and awareness of access to their Medicare card details.
Another asks if the current access controls for HPOS is sufficient to protect Medicare information and prevent fraudulent access, while another queries if the identifying information patients have to produce to access health services is secure enough.
The discussion paper seeks to determine what circumstances health professionals would need to make batch requests for Medicare card details through HPOS, and questions whether such requests should be limited to certain types of providers or health organisations. It also asks if health providers should be subjected to a higher level of scrutiny in such situations.
Lots more here:
Now, if indeed, all projects over $10 million are being reviewed and the report is due shortly then that would be wonderful.
Failing that review covering the myHR, it is hard to see that the myHR does not fall into the category of being one of "all the digital failures"!
One way or another the myHR needs a close look, noting that the HPOS review specifically asks about impact of the leak on the myHR information.
I really hope there is increased transparency soon as the myHR has hardly been a model IT project!
David.
No comments:
Post a Comment