My Health Record could be $2 billion waste
Seven years after its launch — and $2 billion later — there isn’t much to celebrate about the My Health Record, writes Sue Dunlevy. If it’s to succeed, medicos must embrace it.
Rendezview
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rendezview. Followed categories will be added to My News.
There is something a tad ironic about the nation’s “digital” health agency planning an old fashioned face-to-face meeting for 424 staff but there is nothing funny at all about the cost to taxpayers.
As the overseer of the nation’s online My Health Record, the Australian Digital Health Agency should be more qualified than most government organisations to understand the economic efficiency of delivering training online.
Yet now we learn its CEO was planning a staff meeting that can only be described as an extravagant gala event at one of the nation’s premier sporting grounds.
RELATED: Taxpayers dodge $100K My Health SCG gala bill
Thankfully the agency has come to its senses and will spare taxpayers the expense and instead hold the training sessions in their offices.
For those who have followed closely the history of the controversial My Health Record, a project that has so far drained $2 billion from the taxpayer, the latest revelations are not surprising.
The predecessor to the ADHA, the National E-Health Transition Authority, notoriously spent millions of taxpayer dollars on 731 functions for stakeholders, including lavish seafood dinners, after-dinner speakers, flights and accommodation in five-star hotels.
Seven years after its launch and $2 billion down the track there is not much to celebrate in the My Health Record so far.
RELATED: Ambulance paramedics can’t access the My Health Record
Very few general practitioners are using the record, even though it’s meant to save lives. Ambulance paramedics can’t access it, most specialists are not registered to use it and their software is not compatible with it.
After it switched from an opt in to an opt out record no changes were made to the legislation to protect the privacy of millions of Australians, most of whom will be unaware they have this record.
RELATED: How to use your new government owned online My Health Record
It was only after newly elected independent MP Kerryn Phelps pressed for change the government scrambled at the last minute to introduce new privacy protections.
The government is hoping all this will now change after nine in 10 Australians automatically had a record created for them from February 22 if they didn’t opt out.
Now that most Australians have a My Health Record, the government hopes doctors will start using it.
If medicos don’t embrace this record, the planned waste of $100,000 of taxpayers money on a staff training session will be well and truly overshadowed by the waste of over $2 billion in what is so far a white elephant.
Sue Dunlevy is News Corp Australia’s National Health Reporter
Originally published as My Health Record could be $2 billion waste
We’re replacing the kangaroo with this? What a waste of $10m
What happens when you get a self-serving mining billionaire whose fortune depends on the Chinese Communist Party to help rebrand Australia? A national symbol that looks like a COVID-19 cell, writes Miranda Devine.
Sorry for the scare campaign, the planet is fine
When a climate activist apologised for how environmentalists had misled the public over climate change threats, the fearmongers were not happy, especially when Greta is upping her fight, writes Miranda Devine.