Health record review recommends electronic system automatically upload private medical history

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AUSTRALIANS would be signed up to an e-health record by default and have to opt-out if they wanted to keep private information about abortions and mental health issues under sweeping changes to the program.

A government review of the scheme, a $1 billion white elephant that isn’t being used by doctors, also wants to rename the Personally Controlled e-Health Record to the “My Health Record”.Patients would still retain control over the record but doctors would be automatically notified if a patients restricted or deleted a document in it so they could challenge the patient and explain the clinical impact of the removal of important information.

Launched in July 2012 the e-health record was meant to bring medical records into the digital age and contain an electronic patient health summary, a list of allergies and medications and eventually X-rays and test results. Only around a million people have signed up for the record and few of these records has a clinical summary uploaded by a doctor.

A government inquiry into the record, headed by Uniting Care Health chief Richard Royle, has been charged with overhauling the policy and it calls for the much criticised body in charge of the record the Natonal e-Health Transition Authority to be dissolved. Doctors told the inquiry they won’t trust the record unless patients are prevented from changing or withholding any clinical data such as an abortion or mental illness. The inquiry concedes the record won’t be useful until a critical mass of patients and doctors begin using it. Health Minister Peter Dutton released the report on the Department of Health’s website without any notification and his office was not available for comment last night.

Australian Medical Association vice president Professor Geoff Dobb said the government was trying to get away with releasing the report without drawing attention to it under the cover of media focus on the budget outcome. The AMA, which had a representative on the inquiry panel, is happy with the proposal to shift to an opt-out system. “The AMA has always said it was better because doctors can go to a system with a fair certainty there will be information there,” Professor Dobb said. “If it is left to individuals to put information there it is less likely it will be relied on by people in the front line,” he said.

The report does not recommend paying doctors to put patient information on the record and Professor Dobb says the government must provide a special payment for this if it wants doctors to spend the time putting patient clinical summaries on it.

Source: Courier Mail