I just have been thinking some more about what else might be usefully researched to assist the strategy development. Among the ideas I came up with are:
1. What are the Digital Health Strategies of The other G20 countries and have we fully considered with is good and bad with each of them and what may / may not suit Australia? (Links please!)
2. Is there an agreed National Health Strategy for Australia and how does digital health fit into it? (The last one I recall was way back when in the Rudd era � anyone know of serious updates?). The new push into the new so called Medical Homes is clearly an element but it is clear the myHR is by no means an ideal tool to support that activity
3. Are there current overarching Strategy documents (other than responses to requests for comment that have largely been ignored) for Australian digital health from the Health Informatics Society, the Australasian College of Health Informatics and the Health Information Management Association of Australia (I seem to have missed them if they exist)?
4. There is a need to understand just how best to manage the collaboration / cooperation between the private and public sector and to clarify what roles and activity should be undertaken by each. How this is managed is critical and global experience should inform how it is done. Best practice in this area is vital if any national strategy is to succeed. We need research on how this can be optimised.
5. Relevant Health IT Standards need to be catalogued and gaps etc. identified. Global research is also needed here to ensure we don�t re-invent any wheels and we need to be proactive in terms of what is recommended / adopted to ensure we avoid obsolescence. Newer approaches such as FHIR need to be fully evaluated and deployed as relevant.
6. It would be useful to understand just what Australia has in terms of skills and skills gaps, as well as what educational capabilities are available. ACHI maintains a directory of courses in the domain.
7. There needs to be research / audit of the current major Federal and State programs to confirm that they are working as they should and that the maximum benefit is being extracted. Unless these programs can show they are providing some real value some hard decisions need to be made.
8. Research is needed additionally by way of an expert Technology Sweep (maybe from Gartner or equivalent) so we can factor in the obviously useful trends.
9. We also need to assess the Organisational Structures and frameworks that have been successful in supporting the desired e-Health outcomes and see what we can done to ensure ADHA has all the necessary capabilities.
10. We need to know what the best planning / knowledge management techniques are for developing the plan we need, given the breadth and scope required.
Note: For reference I maintain a collection of useful historical files for Australian E-Health.
Here is the link:
The purpose here is to document and remember the history � so we don�t do it again with the same result!
It is also vital to be clear from the outset that Digital Health is an enabler and not the be all of health service improvement.
I am sorry this all seems a bit random but there is a huge knowledge base to be assembled to enable quality forward planning of any value.
Extra ideas more than welcome!
By way of seeing how badly a dramatically improved evidence base is needed is the draft strategy produced earlier this year � which had an embarrassing lack of evidence and research.
See here:
David.
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