AUSTRALIANS could have had a hip replacement, a knee replacement or a brain tumour removed for the money it has cost to create the shared health summaries on their e-health records.
The botched Personally Controlled e-Health Record has been operating for nearly three years but less than one in ten Australians (2.1 million people) currently has one.
And doctors have uploaded just 41,998 shared health summaries onto these records, which means most of the more than 2 million e-health records are empty.
The scheme has so far cost taxpayers more than $1 billion to develop, or almost $24,000 per shared health summary.
Launched by the previous Labor Government in July 2012, the Personally Controlled Electronic 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.
The Abbott Government commissioned a review of the system just after winning office, but has failed to respond to its recommendations for more than 14 months.
The review called for the system to switch from an opt in to an opt out model to speed up the toll out.
If the $1 billion spent so far is to be salvaged and the scheme fully rolled out the government needs to provide direction and funding by June 30.
Health Minster Sussan Ley said she had been listening to doctors about their experiences with Labor’s e-health system as part of her national Medicare consultations and “the prognosis isn’t good for the previous government”.
“Unfortunately Labor’s rush for glory has ended up with a false start costing taxpayers and doctors in the long run due to poor implementation and take up,” Ms Ley said.
“Labor has left a complex, expensive mess behind and this is not an easy overnight fix, but we’re continuing to put the time and effort into getting the right outcome for all involved.”
Following the release of the review report, which found significant flaws in the system, the Government has been consulting widely with key stakeholders including consumers, healthcare providers, software vendors, professional associations and peak bodies.
Australian Medical Association president Professor Brian Owler says the scheme “remains in limbo and to have spent that much money and still not have anything of widespread value is terrible”.
“They tried to roll it out with general practitioners and missed the specialists and it ended up being GPs talking to themselves when it was meant to be about integrating health care,” he said.
Commenting on the delay Health Department Secretary Martin Bowles told a Senate estimates committee this week “it’s a decision before the government”.
“What was Mr Dutton doing for all the time he was health minister, it seems like he was sitting on a whole bunch of reports,” Greens Senator Richard Di Natalie asked Mr Bowles.
Opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King said the government’s review found e-health could save the health system $7 billion a year through fewer diagnoses, treatment and prescription errors, and in the process avoid thousands of unnecessary hospital admissions.
“This was clearly not the outcome the government was looking for, given its failure to act on the report for 14 months,” she said.
The committee was told only 7,645 of the 57,000 health provider organisations have so far registered to use the e-health record.
And just 274 of the 1,338 public and private hospitals around the country are connected to the e-health system.
A review of e-health by IT expert Karen Dearne notes there are an average 36 million GP consultations per day, but the PCEHR System Operator Annual Report found only a paltry 72 attempts by doctors to access e-health records each day.
The rollout of e-health records was growing strongly until late 2013 when the number of new records taken out each month began to slow considerably.
The stalled rollout of digital medal records is only one delay in government decision making concerning health experts.
The government is yet to respond to a major review of the mental health system it commissioned and received before Christmas, and audit into the $15.4 billion taxpayer funded pharmacy agreement is seven months overdue.
The government has scrapped Labor’s Medicare Locals, but three months before the Primary Health Networks that replace them start the government is yet to announce which groups have won the contracts.
Hundreds of health groups that rely on government funding are yet to find out if it will be extended beyond June 30.
And the government has just days to announce the latest health fund premium rise due to take effect in April. Funds need a month to notify their members of the price rise.
Professor Owler is frustrated that instead of running the health system the government has spent more than a year distracted by the task of trying to impose its unpopular GP copayment when it can’t win Senate approval.
“We need an end to the uncertainty about the copayment, get it off the table and get on to health workforce, training GPs, expanding the role of private health insurers and the public hospital system,” he said.
Health Minister Sussan Ley said she had been listening to doctors about their experiences with Labor’s e-health system as part of her national Medicare consultations and “the prognosis isn’t good for the previous government”.
“Unfortunately Labor’s rush for glory has ended up with a false start costing taxpayers and doctors in the long run due to poor implementation and take up,” Ms Ley said.
“Labor has left a complex, expensive mess behind and this is not an easy overnight fix, but we’re continuing to put the time and effort into getting the right outcome for all involved.”
Following the release of the review report, which found significant flaws in the system, the government has been consulting widely with key stakeholders including consumers, healthcare providers, software vendors, professional associations and peak bodies.
Source: News.com.au