On December the 8th, 2010 the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) published an extraordinary “Report to the President realizing the full potential of health information technology to improve healthcare for Americans: the path forward“. This report is extraordinary for a number of reasons. Firstly,  PCAST is not comprised of government […]

I’ve just had a consultation for blocked ears, with a GP at a busy Adelaide clinic. People have told me I don’t listen, but this was definitely a hearing problem. GP took a swab, cleaned me out, gave me a computer-printed prescription for drops and antibiotics, handed me a tiny hand-scrawled chit and sent me on my […]

The inertia embodied in the Australian health system is immense. Attempts to change it have mainly foundered over the years. Portents of failure are writ large, almost everywhere one turns. In this context, let’s look at a favourite topic of mine, the electronic discharge summary. I view electronic discharge summaries as a barometer of e-health […]

Sorry to harp on about this, but I do believe this is an extremely serious issue. The US Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HiMMS) recently put out a call with Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) for an Interoperability Showcase as part of their annual conference. Included in the notice is the following [my emphasis]. […]

A few days ago I singled out Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), perhaps unfairly, in a posting about what seems to me to be widespread ignorance of  a profound issue in e-health – that of information usefulness ( or the lack thereof ). That might be hard to believe, given that the USA government has […]

Despite recent mention of  collaboration in e-health agendas, we still seem to be seeing old silos perpetuate or even new silos being erected in Australia. Why is this so? I think it is because we often don’t recognise a silo until we bump into it personally. Even the rush to embrace e-health is  itself, in […]