Australasian health IT week in review: October 30

Pulse+IT’s weekly round-up of Australian and New Zealand health, IT and eHealth news:

If we lose the rugby, there’s an app that might help you make it through next week
stuff.co.nz ~ Tom Pullar-Strecker ~ 30/10/2015

If you are sick of hearing about either the Rugby World Cup or the Kardashians then, yes, there is now an app for that.


National telehealth service goes live this weekend
NZ Doctor ~ Cliff Taylor ~ 30/10/2015

A new national 24-hour telehealth service is set to go live on Sunday.


Can NBN spark a rural mobile revolution?
The Australian ~ Mark Gregory ~ 30/10/2015

A report containing a review of telecommunication services in regional and remote areas of Australia was tabled in Parliament on October 22 2015.


NZ Blood Service seeks handy app to match donors and need
NZ Doctor ~ Bruce Lee ~ 29/10/2015

The New Zealand Blood Service wants a new mobile app to help it communicate with registered blood donors.


App technology can fix the e-health system if done right
The Conversation ~ David Glance ~ 29/10/2015

On Wednesday, federal Health Minister Sussan Ley announced two new trials of the so-far-unsuccessful, personally controlled electronic health record – rebadged as “My Health Record”.


Huawei’s smartwatch available in NZ
stuff.co.nz ~ Staff writer ~ 29/10/2015

Huawei has released its first smartwatch in New Zealand as it joins the race to get consumers to buy wearables.


Ley spruiks patient control in e-Health announcement
Medical Observer ~ David Rowley ~ 28/10/2015

Opt-out e-Health trials will begin in parts of NSW and Queensland early next year in about one million patients, Health Minister Sussan Ley has revealed.


Opt-out eHealth record to be trialled in Queensland, NSW
Computerworld ~ Rohan Pearce ~ 28/10/2015

Trials of an ‘opt out’ approach to signups for the national eHealth record will be held in far north Queensland and in the Nepean Blue Mountains region in NSW, health minister Sussan Ley has revealed.


New IT health system for South Australia has Auditor-General worried
ABC News ~ Staff writer ~ 28/10/2015

Possible cost blowouts and delays associated with the rollout of yet another health IT system in South Australia has the state Auditor-General worried.


Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital “never properly funded”
Brisbane Times ~ Amy Remeikis ~ 27/10/2015

Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital was “never properly funded”, Health Minister Cameron Dick said, announcing an additional $70 million funding over four years for the headline-plagued hospital.


FSH alarm fails to alert staff
The West Australian ~ Tayissa Barone ~ 26/10/2015

A patient who almost suffocated at Fiona Stanley Hospital was given a counter bell to get nurses’ attention when her initial request for help went unanswered.


ICT in aged care: more work to be done
Australian Ageing Agenda ~ Natasha Egan ~ 26/10/2015

The aged care sector has transitioned from a very low technology base at the turn of the century to mainstream acknowledgement about the need to electrify and integrate business and clinical systems, but there is still a way to go, says the organiser of the industry’s annual IT conference.


Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital problems spark urgent meeting
Brisbane Times ~ Jorge Branco ~ 26/10/2015

Problems at the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital have sparked an urgent meeting between doctors and the Queensland government as the health minister hints at a funding boost.


E-medication systems still require robust checking: study
Australian Ageing Agenda ~ Natasha Egan ~ 26/10/2015

An evaluation of a hybrid paper-electronic medication management system at a 90-bed residential aged care facility has found 125 medication discrepancies, leading to an administration error in 25 per cent of cases, and delays in administration of new orders.


In-home rehab, imaging app and BloodNet big winners at iAwards

An app using games and videos to show children what’s involved in medical images took out the health category at the national iAwards late last week, with the National Blood Authority’s BloodNet laboratory information system interface and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute/Curve Tomorrow Sonny Movement rehab platform also featuring prominently.

The National Blood Authority took out the government category at the awards for the BloodNet LIS interface, which automates the real-time exchange of hospital inventory levels of critical blood stocks and the status of each unit, along with the Victorian Government Inspiration Award and a merit award in the health category.

The overall health category winner is called Okee in Medical Imaging, and is a joint development between the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne and digital agency Conduct.

Okee uses games to train children how to hold their breath and keep still while having a medical image taken, as well as about contrast agents and the different imaging modalities. It’s available as a mobile and tablet app to prepare children and families for scans in a fun and engaging way.

Analytica’s PeriCoach device for pelvic floor muscle training also won a merit award in the health category.

Sonny Movement, an assessment and rehabilitation platform for children with movement disorders, took out the new product award. Developed by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and Melbourne-based digital health product design firm Curve Tomorrow, Sonny Movement uses gesture control and social gaming technologies to make rehab fun for children while a 3D camera allows researchers to analyse the child’s movement remotely in real time.

The two organisations also won a merit award in the research and development domain for PEERS (Paediatric Evaluation of Emotions, Relationships and Socialisation), a digital assessment tool for children with autism spectrum disorders, ADHD and depression.

National ICT Australia (NICTA) spin-out company Coviu won the regional inclusion and community award in the society domain for its WebRTC-based digital services delivery platform. Coviu’s technology is being used to provide speech therapy to children in rural areas of NSW.

NICTA’s VibroMat technology, a non-invasive visual prosthetic device aimed at assisting people with vision loss with a range of tasks, won a merit award in the undergraduate tertiary category. The overall winner was Anthony Phan from Curtin University for his robotic hand exoskeleton.

Jarrel Seah, who co-developed the Eyenaemia app for screening for anaemia, own the mobile category in the Hills Young Innovator of the Year awards.

A full list of the award winners is available form the iAwards website.

NICTA-CSIRO digital merger still a funding-free zone

It is still unclear how many jobs will be lost from research body National ICT Australia (NICTA) or what funding will be made available to the new entity that has been established to absorb its work.

Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane and Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull issued a joint statement late last week announcing that NICTA would merge with the CSIRO’s Digital Productivity flagship to form Data61, which will be led by technology entrepreneur Adrian Turner (pictured).

A CSIRO spokesperson said the name Data61 was a reflection of Australia’s international area code – 61 – and its focus on “building new technologies and businesses that revolve around, are fed on, and deal with data in all its forms”.

While the ministers hailed it as a “research powerhouse”, the merger was forced by massive cuts to government funding for NICTA and the CSIRO, which has seen over 1000 jobs lost over the last few years.

The Coalition unexpectedly announced just before the 2013 election that it would cut federal funding to NICTA, despite saying it was supportive of its work.

A spokesperson for then opposition communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull said it was expected that NICTA would access funding through the Australian Research Council or directly from industry.

Confirmation that all funding would be cut from July 2015 led to the resignation of CEO Hugh Durrant-Whyte in November last year, with CSIRO and NICTA in negotiations over a merger for most of this year.

In healthcare, NICTA runs the Living Lab at the University of Canberra’s Health Hub, which is trialling new technologies such as a handheld electronic health record at a full-service general practice super clinic.

NICTA has also spun out a number of health IT start-ups, including Saluda Medical, which has developed a closed loop neuromodulation control system for pain relief that is also being aimed at incontinence, Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.

It also recently spun out Coviu, which has developed a WebRTC-based platform aimed at providing telehealth services for allied health practitioners and a “virtual counter” that uses WebRTC to replicate government services formerly offered face-to-face.

The CSIRO’s Digital Productivity flagship includes groups such as the Australian eHealth Research Centre (AEHRC) which is jointly funded by the Queensland Department of Health, under its banner. The AEHRC is active in data analytics and health informatics as well as tele-ophthalmology and the Smarter Safer Homes platform.

CSIRO has also developed the SNAPPER and Medtex software for using terminologies like SNOMED CT and the free text entered into pathology and diagnostic imaging reports for better clinical decision support, as well as the Patient Admission Prediction Tool (PAPT) for hospital bed demand forecasting and scheduling.

Mr Turnbull said Data61 will continue to train Australia’s future digital technologists through an enhanced PhD program, with more than 300 PhD students enrolled at partner universities.

Opposition communications spokesman Jason Clare said while he welcomed the announcement that NICTA had found a way to remain viable, it should never have been de-funded in the first place.

“This is a second-best solution,” Mr Clare said. “The inevitable consequence will be more jobs lost in the science sector.”

Mr Turner said his vision for Data61 was to harness the start-up culture of NICTA and multidisciplinary strength of CSIRO to deliver maximum benefit to Australia.

“So much of our understanding and interaction with the world is underpinned by digital technology and data,” Mr Turner said.

“It is a fast moving and big growth area for Australia and Australian industry, and Data61 will be well positioned to play a leading role in defining the new economic structures and opportunities that are emerging globally.”

No silver bullet for comprehensive cancer information

The Ministry of Health has published a new plan to improve the collection, storage and provision of cancer health information as part of a national approach.

Aligned with the New Zealand Cancer Plan, the new Cancer Health Information Strategy provides a five-year framework for changes to the way cancer clinical data and patient information is collected and stored.

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman said the strategy will ensure information is consistent and accessible across the country and will help to inform future investment in cancer health information-based initiatives.

“Currently information is collected and stored by a range of health professionals which makes it challenging to get a comprehensive view of a patient,” Dr Coleman said.

“While progress has been made in joining information across DHBs, until now there has been no national approach.”

Andrew Simpson, the Ministry of Health’s national clinical director for cancer, writes in the foreword to the strategy that it would be a pragmatic approach to achieving the vision of comprehensive, accessible and accurate information to support the delivery of quality care across the cancer patient pathway.

“It is built on the premise that there is no ‘silver bullet’ solution to achieving this goal,” Dr Simpson said. “It requires commitment from everyone working in the cancer sector to change the way they capture, treat and share information at all stages of the pathway.”

The main points of the strategy are to establish a national framework for managing consistent change to cancer data, information and intelligence; to standardise, digitise and make accessible cancer data at the point of care; to aggregate relevant patient and cancer service data into cancer information; and to analyse information, produce cancer intelligence and communicate it to stakeholders.

Underpinning the strategy are guiding principles including that the collection of patient-specific cancer health data occurs at the point of care wherever possible, and is integrated with patients’ health records, and that duplication of cancer health data is minimised.

Ethnicity data will be collected and standardised data definitions will be adopted including HISO’s national cancer core data standards and the national specialist palliative care data standard.

As mandated by the National Health IT Board, SNOMED CT must be used as the system of clinical terminology used to capture cancer health information at the point of care.

The roadmap will see some initial analysis work to develop a set of national requirements for standardisation, digitisation, aggregation and reporting of key data points along the cancer pathway.

This will then be used to scope a detailed work program covering streams such as multi-disciplinary meetings, staging, co-morbidity, ethnicity, cancer data standards, aggregation and reporting and communication.

Old and new ideas in the running for Clinicians’ Challenge

New and existing ideas are welcome at this year’s Clinicians’ Challenge competition, entries for which are now open.

Organised by the National Health IT Board and Health Informatics New Zealand (HINZ), the competition is aimed at encouraging clinicians to share their ideas for innovative ways of using information and technology.

This year, there will be two categories: one for new ideas for a system or application that uses information to improve workflows, bring efficiencies or support better integrated care, and the other for a project that is developed or in active development that has improved the way clinicians work or supports better integrated health services.

Also this year, extra marks will be awarded if the case uses SNOMED terminology. Other judging criteria includes whether the case aligns with the national health IT plan priorities, it supports clinical integration, the sharing of information and the use of of data to support clinical decision making.

The winner in each category will receive a grant of $8000 and runners-up will receive a grant of $2000. All four finalists will receive registration to the HiNZ conference in Christchurch in October.

Entries close on Monday, September 14 and the winners will be announced at the HINZ conference gala dinner.

International health IT week in review: May 31

Pulse+IT’s weekly weekend round-up of international health IT and eHealth news:

Stage 3 proposals are not yet feasible, AHA says
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 29/05/2015

The American Hospital Association has urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services not to finalize the proposed Stage 3 electronic health records meaningful use rule.


CHIME: Meaningful Use Stage 3 proposals ‘unworkable’
FierceEMR ~ Katie Dvorak ~ 28/05/2015

Stage 3 of Meaningful Use is too ambitious, the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) says in comments submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services this week on the proposed rule.


UHB commercialises online referral tool
Digital Health News ~ Thomas Meek ~ 28/05/2015

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust plans to market its online referral system, NORSe, to other NHS trusts.


mHealth market to grow 33% annually over 5 years
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 28/05/2015

The global mobile health market, valued at $10.5 billion in 2014, is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 33.5 percent between 2015 and 2020, according to a new report by Allied Market Research.


Web GP to reach millions
Digital Health News ~ Rebecca McBeth ~ 27/05/2015

A GP e-consultation and self-help web service expects to reach 2 million patients by this time next year.


Task forces to replace health IT standards committee workgroups
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 26/05/2015

The Health IT Standards Committee, a stakeholder advisory committee to the Office of the National Coordinator for HIT, is changing how it makes recommendations to O


What exactly is ‘population health,’ anyway?
HealthcareITNews ~ Tom Sullivan ~ 26/05/2015

As anyone who either attended HIMSS15 or followed the ensuing conversation can attest, population health is currently all the rage.


Cedars-Sinai leverages patient data in Epic-HealthKit integration
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 26/05/2015

The Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles has integrated its Epic electronic health records system with Apple’s HealthKit to exploit health and fitness data gathered from more than 80,000 patients.


NHS 111 should be scrapped – GPs
Digital Health News ~ Thomas Meek ~ 26/05/2015

NHS 111 should be “scrapped” in its current form, GP leaders have said.


Bill would OK telehealth use by VA healthcare providers across state lines
FierceHealthIT ~ Katie Dvorak ~ 26/05/2015

A new bill introduced by House lawmakers late last week would allow health professionals working for the Department of Veterans Affairs to practice telemedicine across state borders.


Minnesota exempts some docs from EHR mandate
FierceEMR ~ Marla Durben Hirsch ~ 26/05/2015

Minnesota is softening its stance on electronic health record adoption a bit, exempting solo practitioners and cash-only doctors from its law requiring all providers to adopt interoperable EHRs.


Milton Keynes to stick with Cerner
Digital Health News ~ Rebecca McBeth ~ 26/05/2015

Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has signed a ten-year, £23 million deal to continue using Cerner Millennium beyond the end of its national contract for the system.


CMIO: Patient portal a ‘source of truth’
HealthcareITNews ~ Mike Miliard ~ 22/05/2015

At Flemington, N.J.-based Hunterdon Healthcare System, patient engagement is an all-hands-on-deck project, says its Chief Medical Information Officer, Wayne Fellmeth, MD.


House committee unanimously approves 21st Century Cures bill
Health Data Management ~ Greg Slabodkin ~ 22/05/2015

By a vote of 51-0, the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday approved the 21st Century Cures Act bill, including health information technology provisions potentially impacting electronic health records interoperability, regulation of software as medical devices, and Medicare reimbursement policies for telemedicine.


Victorian EDs to pilot screening app for harmful drinking

A mobile phone app equipped with the World Health Organisation’s Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Tool (AUDIT) is set to be piloted in three Victorian emergency departments to help clinicians screen people for harmful drinking.

The trial is a collaboration between Monash University, Monash Health, the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine and the Hello Sunday Morning campaign, which have teamed up for the Enough is Enough: Emergency Department Clinicians Action on Reducing Alcohol Harm project.

The project has won funding from the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) as part of its alcohol innovation challenge.

Lead researcher Diana Egerton-Warburton, an associate professor at Monash University’s Department of Medicine and School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, said the intervention program aimed to reduce alcohol harm in Victoria and the number of people admitted to emergency departments.

“This project will develop a smart phone app to allow emergency department clinicians to identify hazardous drinkers and offer them a brief intervention (BI) and referral to appropriate follow up services,” Dr Egerton-Warburton said in a statement.

Clinicians will screen patients for harmful drinking on their smartphones using the AUDIT, a simple tool that contains questions on alcohol consumption, drinking behaviour and dependence, and problems related to drinking.

Where appropriate, clinicians can then refer the patient to HelloSundayMorning.org, an online program that encourages users to take a break from alcohol.

Dr Egerton-Warburton said about 10 per cent of emergency attendances at Monash Health, Victoria’s busiest ED, were the result of harmful drinking.

“We plan to develop a brief intervention that is feasible for busy emergency service clinicians to reduce alcohol harm in Victoria and reduce emergency department representation rates.”

The project aims to pilot the app at Monash Health, St Vincent’s Hospital and a Victorian regional hospital.

Alcidion raises capital for further expansion of Miya platform

Adelaide-based health informatics firm Alcidion has conducted a capital raising exercise to fund the expansion of its Miya technology platform.

Alcidion has raised $1.5 million from Blue Sky Private Equity, a division of listed firm Blue Sky Alternative Investments, as well as from the company’s co-founders, Ray Blight and Malcolm Pradhan, and from technology entrepreneur and Alcidion board member Nathan Buzza, through his Allure Capital boutique investment firm.

The new capital raising follows a $2.4 million investment by a fund managed by Blue Sky in 2012. This allowed the company to further develop Miya, which has been designed for emergency departments, patient flow and outpatient services.

Miya is the platform behind Western Health’s iAward-winning intelligent Cardiovascular Information System (iCVIS), which was developed in association with Fujifilm Medical Systems.

As Mr Blight told Pulse+IT last year, Miya is able to extract data from any clinical, administrative or logistics system in a hospital, including point-of-care devices, and marshal that data in a way that makes sense in terms of mitigating the patient’s clinical risk.

“Miya harvests the data and then prompts the best practice clinical protocols for chest pain to remind the clinician of all the different parameters that they need to consider, and then records the decision made, such as whether this patient has got to go off for an ECG for example,” Mr Blight said.

“It then monitors the fact that an ECG actually gets booked, actually gets carried out and makes the results of the ECG available to all members of the care team.”

However, Mr Blight said Miya can support any healthcare problem resolution, regardless of which medical or surgical discipline is caring for the patient.

Miya is being used for a number of clinical and patient management applications at Victoria’s Western Health as well as by the departments of health in the Northern Territory and Tasmania.

For patient flow, it is being used at Western Health for its intelligent patient journey system (iPJS), which has been rolled out at Footscray, Sunshine and Williamstown hospitals.

The Northern Territory Department of Health is rolling it out at Royal Darwin and Alice Springs hospitals, and the Tasmanian Department of Health and Human Services has also contracted Alcidion to deliver Miya Patient Flow as well as an integrated outpatient system.

Miya also forms the platform for the advance care directives repository built by the Cradle Coast eHealth site in northern Tasmania as part of the PCEHR roll-out. A federal Department of Health representative told a Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) seminar in Sydney last week that the functionality to upload advance care directives was now designed and was waiting prioritisation from the federal government to begin implementation.

Alcidion has also worked with the Cradle Coast on an eReferrals project, building an eGateway to allow eReferrals to be sent from GP software to area health service hospitals.

Mr Blight said one of Miya’s benefits was the ability to add incremental modules without the burden of costly and cumbersome implementation processes or the need to purchase different departmental products.

Blue Sky Private Equity director Alexander McNab said in a statement that Miya represented “one of the most significant innovations in clinical decision support the industry has seen in decades and the newly raised capital will help bring the breakthrough solution into the mass market”.

Mr Buzza said one of the greatest challenges in healthcare is providing a high quality of interoperability with the myriad of clinical systems now used. “[T]hat’s what Alcidion has done exceptionally well with the Miya platform,” he said.