Mr Dutton announced the review at the weekend that will be headed by UnitingCare Health Queensland chief Richard Royle and supported by Australian Medical Association president Steve Hambleton and Australia Post chief information officer Andrew Walduck.
The panel will examine the level of consultation with end users and stakeholder groups during development, gaps between expectations and what has been delivered, and what needs to be done to fix the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record.
It will invite submissions from the public and groups such as clinical bodies. The panel will present its findings to Mr Dutton by mid-December.
"It will be interesting to see how transparent the process is and how the relevant authorities will deal with criticism," West Australian GP Edwin Kruys said.
"However, we should avoid the blame game."
Dr Kruys said the review must lead to improvements such as changes in the personally controlled e-health records legislation.
"Secondary use of data without specific consent is a big concern for many consumers and clinicians," Dr Kruys said.
"Integration of private sector products is a great idea if you ask me, although the same data governance principles apply."
He said he was not familiar with Mr Royle and Mr Walduck but that Dr Hambleton's appointment to the review was a good choice.
Mr Royle has spent more than three decades in the healthcare industry and played a key role in building one of Australia's first fully digital hospitals in Hervey Bay, Queensland.
Mr Walduck has held several senior technology roles, including more than two years at Tabcorp and more than nine years with Accenture, the company that built the PCEHR alongside the National E-Health Transition Authority. His stint at Accenture ended in 2009, two years before the PCEHR tender was released.
Dr Kruys said that six weeks was adequate because "we know where the bottlenecks are, so let's get on with it".
However, Health IT expert David More disagreed, saying more time should be allocated to the review.
"The report is due in less than six weeks so there is no way this can be a serious review of a 2.5-year, $1bn program," Dr More said on his blog.
"My guess is the minister knows what he wants to do and wants the cover of a non e-health expert inquiry to be able to get on with whatever it is he wants to do.
"It is not that urgent and should be done properly with a much broader consultation process. We have come this far, we need a quality review and all options need to be on the table and properly explored.
"The outcome of this inquiry will most likely determine the future of e-health for a decade and six weeks is just not enough."
Medical Software Industry Association secretary Emma Hossack welcomed the government's initiative and was pleased by the terms of reference, which "specifically seek to examine the future applicability and integration of private sector products".
"When selected and implemented properly, medical software has the capacity to deliver improved clinical outcomes and efficiencies," Ms Hossack said.
"This has not happened with the PCEHR program."
Ms Hossack said e-health could "achieve great things when the government does as little as possible and as much as necessary".
"The National Health and Hospital Reform Report, which endorsed the Deloitte national e-health strategy specifically stated that the plan 'should not require government involvement with designing, buying or operating IT systems', (but) what we have seen with the PCEHR is what happens when a government acts the opposite way to the expert reports it claimed to be following," Ms Hossack said.
She said it was time to build on "the effective, safe and useful work already done by the Australian health IT industry".
"This is what the national e-health strategy recommended and this strategy should now be followed," she said.
Mr Dutton told Sky News' Australian Agenda program on Sunday that "only a few hundred doctors" were uploading details into people's files. He described it as a scandal.
"So, on those numbers it runs out at about $200,000 a patient in terms of the investment that the former government made," Mr Dutton said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Fran Foo
Quelle/Source: The Australian, 05.11.2013
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