Interoperability progress on trial at Wild Health Melbourne

How do peak organisations work together to step up our progress on healthcare interoperability?

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Interoperability is probably the most important issue facing the future of Australia’s healthcare sector, so it’s starting to get a lot of attention from the government ( the ADHA, but also most eHealth sections of state governments) , the health tech sector, and from industry representative bodies such as the AMA, the RACGP, HISA, the MTAA and the AHHA.

But progress is still slow. Can things be sped up for the greater good? And if so, where are the most important touch points for progress? And which parts of the system are the barnacles that need a chisel taken to them?

Are the ADHA interoperability trials bearing enough fruit? Why are the technology vendors still doing trials outside the ADHA framework, and will the ADHA be adaptable enough to incorporate any technology developed outside its framework?

Will the big pathology providers really give up their downstream reselling channels by opening up pathology communications, so we can have one or two open systems only, not more than 20 bespoke systems, that keep the system complex and tie GP practices to them, which creates significant complexity and inefficiency in the overall system?

How are all the parties involved going to move forward on the rapidly evolving, and seemingly agile, FHIR standard? Grahame Grieve has come out and declared the formal arrival of the standard in the hospital system through Cerner’s Argonaut. Is that the start of something much bigger across our whole system?

The ADHA is starting incorporate the standard at the edges of its MyHR project.

But the architecture of the MyHR remains centred on CDA.  There are murmurings that the agency will look to change that in the not too distant future, to open the system up more by taking much greater advantage of the Australian-developed FHIR. If that happens will that really open things up? Or is the MyHR becoming a sideshow to the real interoperability show between GPs, their allied health providers, pathology and the hospital sector?

If the ADHA is as adaptable as they are saying, where is the MYHR going to bed down? As an upstream facilitator of coalface and important new technologies such as CDMnet, LinkEMR and Extensia’s EMR sharing offerings?

Are we, as Australians, just too competitive to be able to leave our egos and war strategies at the door, burn at least some of our smaller boats, and iron out some problems that everyone sees, and everyone agrees, would make the system better for all, but which we consistently fail to make progress on?

Why do smaller countries, such as New Zealand, Scotland and Estonia, succeed in rapid progress in e-health when we don’t? Are we doomed because of a culture that doesn’t seem to covet the community greater good as clearly as some of these smaller nations seem too?

And what about LHNs vs PHNs? Why, when we get good people with great intent from both of these organisations in the same room do we feel like we have brought together two long warring tribes? Of course, our funding system has a lot to answer for, setting good people against each other in an artificial competition that seems to be retarding productivity.

Funding is one of the most stubborn barnacles that will take a long time to shift. But are there other cultural dynamics at play that we can look at through new lenses and start addressing? Or will the government step up and make some hard decisions on things such as Health Care Homes, which will break the log-jam on moving funding to outcomes not fee-for-service in the primary sector?

Hospital interoperability, if it just gets better internally, is probably even less than half the overall equation. The whole healthcare system needs to unite somehow. But most hospital initiatives are working independently of primary-care initiatives.

Wild Health isn’t going to solve all these issues. But we hope it will start to surface them and point people to new ways of dealing with them.

All these questions, and a lot more, are going to put to the panels at Wild Health. Unlike other meetings, Wild Health isn’t calling for papers and speakers. We are targeting the major decision makes and opinion leaders so we can put them in Q&A, with you the audience doing a lot of the interrogation. And our moderators will make sure the difficult issue get well aired and argued.

After all, you are the clients, whether you are a technology or software vendor, a healthcare professional, or most importantly, a patient in the system.

Wild Health, which was held in Sydney successfully for the first time in October this year, is taking all these ideas, questions, and challenges to Melbourne, for its second outing on April 17 at Collins Square.

Panellists and speakers for the Melbourne event include:

Tim Kelsey: Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Digital Health Agency 

Michael Draheim: Chief Information Officer, Metro South Health Queensland and Adjunct Professor Queensland University

Sharon Hakkennes: Chief Information Officer, Barwon Health

Dr Kim Wong: Chief Medical Information Officer at Peninsular Health

Matthew Thatcher: Director, Electronic Medical Record, The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne

Robyn Gillies: Chief Medical Information Officer, The Royal Melbourne Hospital

Dr Peter Sprivulis: A/Chief Clinical Information Officer, Department of Health, Government of Western Australia

Dr Mukesh Haikerwal: AO and former president of the Australian Medical Association

Grahame Grieve: Globally-renowned architect-developer of FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources)

Peter Edelstein (international speaker from the US): Chief Medical Officer, Reed Elsevier

Andrew Saunders: Digital Health Adviser and the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services’ former CIO and Director of Digital Health Transformation

Monica Trujillo: Chief Clinical Information Officer, Australian Digital Health Agency

Emma Hossack: President, Medical Software Industry Association 

Professor Enrico Coiera: Internationally-recognised leader in artificial intelligence, Director and Professor of Medical Informatics and Director, Centre for Health Informatics at Macquarie University

Dr Chris Pearce: Chair, Digital Health Committee of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine

Robyn Gillies: Chief Medical Information Officer, The Royal Melbourne Hospital

Dr Nathan Pinskier: Chair RACGP Expert Committee eHealth & Practice Systems, Board Member Peninsula Health

And Victoria’s Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed its soon-to-be-appointed CIO of its Digital Health division will speak at the summit.

Super Early Bird Tickets are now on sale BUT, they finish by Christmas. These are huge value at 20% off the early bird rate. Your code is WHSEBXMAS. Using this code your ticket will cost as low as $264 per person! (+ GST on six pack) That’s nearly half the standard price for a day  for access of the top people in the field, including networking sessions.

If you think you want to get into the program, or sponsor, email Angela on angela@wildhealth.com.au, or  John at john@wildhealth.com.au

Tickets are available HERE and you can find detailed summit information at our website HERE