Some have warned that the opt-in, personally controlled e-health system, designed as an online summary of people's health information, risks becoming a white elephant.
Patients decide who can gain access to their e-health record and it allows them to view and control information added to their record by doctors or other healthcare professionals.
Patients rely on their GPs to create shared health summaries - which include diagnoses, allergies and medications - in the system.
More than a year after its launch, doctors are still resisting using the PCEHR because of several factors such as security and privacy concerns.
Their views were reflected in survey when the members-only ustralian Doctor magazine canvassed the views of its subscribers for PCEHR participation rates.
About 58 per cent of respondents said they would never take part in the scheme and will not be promoting its use to patients.
Around 29 per cent said they would be taking part but have yet to write a health summary.
Only 6 per cent have written health summaries for the PCEHR.
Seven per cent said they would not be personally taking part, but colleagues in their practice were.
Australian Doctor's online poll comprised 514 participants.
The National E-health Transition Authority was charged with building the system, with Accenture as its main contractor.
West Australian GP Edwin Kruys, who participated in the survey, said the results came as no surprise.
"We have been requesting the government and NEHTA for a long time to improve the system and make it more usable for clinicians," Dr Kruys, who is part of a 20-person medical practice in Geraldton, said.
"If the government doesn't listen, the PCEHR will be another Labor white elephant."
In order to access the government's PCEHR incentive scheme, doctors have to sign a contract that says all confidential patient information uploaded to the system can be used in any way by the government and "other organisations forever". It also states that all PCEHR information will belong to the government.
But the government argues that the healthcare provider participation agreement was developed in close consultation with healthcare provider stakeholders, such as the AMA and RACGP and indemnity insurers.
Doctors don't have a lot of confidence in the system, Dr Kruys said. "Medicare says your information is safe and secure (but) even big IT companies can get hacked.
"When the PCEHR was being built, it got hacked so there's not a lot of confidence out there."
On July 3 last year, The Australian reported that the e-health platform was hacked while being developed but the incident went undetected for several months.
E-health expert David More said the survey results, which come from a significant sample size, shows that one of two things has happened.
"Either the PCEHR has not been designed to address the clinician's needs and wants for a shared electronic system or the way the system has been implemented has not made clinicians comfortable to become involved - with concerns regarding risk, liability, insurance, security and information currency," Dr More said.
He said if concerns raised by clinicians like Dr Kruys were ignored, the PCEHR would be "doomed".
"If the situation is to be recovered, what needs to happen is that all these issues are formally addressed and resolved to the satisfaction of those clinicians who are involved," Dr More said.
Health Minister Tanya Plibersek declined to comment on the survey results.
The government failed to deliver on its 500,000 target by June 30 for PCEHR registrations, coming up short by about 100,000 consumers.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Fran Foo
Quelle/Source: Australian IT, 16.07.2013
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