IT system a white elephant
A Federal scheme to provide thousands of GPs with communications encryption technology so they can send sensitive health information securely over the Internet risks turning into an expensive white elephant because hardly any other health workers can decode the messages.
The Australian newspaper reports that a revamp of Federal Government incentive payments in August meant GPs must be signed up for the secure communications method known as “public key infrastructure” in order to remain eligible for grants worth up to $50,000 per practice each year.
The idea of the system is that it allows doctors to send sensitive patient data, including referrals and test results, to each other without risk of the information being seen by other people.
But Mukesh Haikerwal, one of the 10 commissioners who wrote the recent National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission report, says the scheme is turning into a “superhighway to nowhere” because hardly any hospitals, specialists or allied health workers have the technology, and they have been given little incentive to adopt it.
“If everybody was connected, it would be a very useful thing to be doing,” said Dr Haikerwal, a former Australian Medical Association president who is also a vocal advocate for greater use of information technology in health care.
“But it’s not (currently useful) – either you stop the rollout, or you enable everyone to be part of the system. Ninety-eight per cent of us (GPs) are able to send stuff securely, but none are able to receive it in a secure electronic form, and none are able to send us stuff back.”
