I have, on a number of occasions over the past decade,  tried to explain the importance of building software, systems, national infrastructure, etc. on the right foundations. Other people who do this in the e-health arena often talk purely about the importance of standards and the analogy with the ‘rail gauge problem’ experienced in Australia […]

It seems that there are very few people involved in health information standards that are able to discern the difference between a thing in the singular and things in the plural! Perhaps many people can discern the difference but just don’t realize  how difficult it is for computers to discern the difference. So often I […]

Well, two themes dominated the two day e-health summit in Melbourne this week:- Infectious enthusiasm vagueness of the PCEHR These two themes actually run hand in glove. Both the vagueness of the PCEHR model and the rampant optimism are in large part due to ignorance. There was an endless supply of fresh consumer, bureaucrat and […]

Amongst the frenetic activity arising from Health Minister Roxon’s promise to have a personally controlled health record (PCEHR) available to all Australians by July 2012, and her more recent announcement of a summit on the subject at the end of November, comes the spawning of a spate of related articles in the media. In particular, […]

Just a whisker over 10 years ago, closely following the release of the National Electronic Health Records Task Force’s  landmark report, but before “e-health” or “electronic health records” became household words,  a National Health Online Summit was held in Adelaide. It seems like Australia has taken a few steps forward, but possibly even more  backwards, […]