Abbott’s promise to defer spending on e-health criticised

The Australian IT writer, Karen Dearne, has reported on the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and consumer group opposition to Tony Abbott’s promise to defer e-health plans until the budget is back in surplus.

“We are certainly committed to e-health; we think it will lead to many improvements in patient safety. But $5 billion has been spent on e-health over the past 10 years and the experience is that a lot of money can be wasted,” opposition e-health spokesman, Andrew Southcott said.

Ms Dearne reports that “In fact, as Health Minister in the Howard Government, Tony Abbott presided over much of this expenditure. In 2005, Mr Abbott pulled the plug on the Coalition’s former HealthConnect sharable e-health records program, and created the National E-Health Transition Authority, which has been spending about $165,000 a day ever since”.

While the Coalition has vowed to scrap Labor’s $467 million personally controlled e-health record program as a saving measure, “that’s not to say individual records can’t be revisited” when a budget surplus was achieved, Dr Southcott said.

“In government, the important (e-health) priority will be the successful introduction of healthcare identifiers,” he said.

“Funding has already been set aside for that through the Council of Australian Governments.”

A spokeswoman for Federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, said the Coalition’s plan to cut e-health funding was short-sighted and irresponsible.

“All the experts agree that Australia needs an e-health system,” she said.

“Scrapping the work that’s been done will condemn doctors and nurses to shuffling paper instead of treating patients.”

The spokeswoman said this was another example of the Opposition Leader’s “poor judgment in not recognising what our health system needs to cope with future demand”.

But doctors, consumers and industry are tired of the politicking around e-health, and are calling for a bipartisan approach.

AMA president, Andrew Pesce, wants firm deadlines set for e-health outcomes.

“E-health should be an absolute priority,” Dr Pesce said.

“Quite apart from the improvements in healthcare, it will actually save money. There’s an immediate return simply by stopping duplication in pathology and imaging just because a doctor doesn’t have access to test results.”

Dr Pesce said open-ended commitments to “doing something on e-health one day” were no longer good enough.

“We need to have e-health up and running in a significant way within the term of the next government,” he said.

“To do that, we need timelines for specific measures to be achieved within certain timeframes. When the priorities and deadlines for compliance are set, people can work out the investments needed and start working towards the target.”

Dr Pesce said it was essential to achieve software compatibility across the health sector, so that patient information could be uploaded into e-health records.

Consumers Health Forum executive director, Carol Bennett, said e-health could not be considered optional – it was fundamental to any modern health system.

“It’s an absolute nonsense when you consider that the telecommunications industry, banking and other government areas have all been able to adopt IT systems that enable better management of information to benefit consumers, but we can’t do it in health,” she said.

“Yet health is probably the most critical area where you want to ensure the accuracy of information that doctors have at hand.”

Australian Privacy Foundation health spokeswoman, Juanita Fernando, said a single, coherent and contextual e-health policy was at the top of her election wishlist.

“Like many others, I’m waiting to review a policy that builds on the healthcare identifiers number and the existing system more generally,” she said.