Axe falls on electronic health records

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Medical information is currently shared among health providers as the need arises.

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Electronic health records are on the backburner after a project led by seven district health boards was canned.

The Government's national health-information technology board will instead lead a drive to share patient information through buying interoperable systems, although this is not a priority for the board.

The seven DHBs sought to establish a system which would hold a complete record of a person's health history that could be accessed by all health professionals and even patients themselves.

Medical information is currently shared electronically between health providers as the need arises.

Graeme Osborne, chairman of the Health Ministry's Health Information Strategy Advisory Committee (HISAC), which led a review into the project, says the decision to disband the DHBs' project reflects a move towards a national approach to health IT.

Clinicians and DHB representatives working on the project will be involved in developing a national solution, although there are no firm plans for this yet, he says.

"There is certainly a vision to achieve what the DHBs were talking about, but there is not a project to buy a system."

Bennett Medary, managing director of The Simpl Group, which was overseeing the procurement process for the DHBs, rejected calls from an earlier Health Ministry review for the project be scrapped, but referred comment on the project's dissolution to its chairman, John Peters.

Mr Peters, who is also chief executive of the Nelson Marlborough DHB, says the move makes sense.

"When the seven DHBs got together to do this, there was no national body or group such as the health IT board that has now been established. We've not been fighting to survive as an independent group. We are pleased the national approach has seen and recognised the value of things such as strong clinical engagement and that clinical leaders and non-clinical leaders will be involved."

The board will probably take longer to implement a solution than the seven DHBs, but that is a worthwhile tradeoff for having a national scheme, he says. The knowledge gained through the project would not be wasted, but some processes, such as a project review for the State Services Commission, will have to be repeated for the national initiative.

Contrary to widespread belief, the DHBs had not committed to purchasing a single enterprise system instead of interoperable software, he says.

The review said industry stakeholders and vendors had concerns about the DHBs' project, including whether they had the mandate to lead the purchase of systems supporting integrated care and that big-bang changes and large-scale implementations were inherently risky and had a limited record of success in New Zealand.

The results of a request for information from system suppliers issued by the DHBs were interesting, but of little use going forward, according to the review.

The DHBs launched the project after a key vendor of patient and clinical systems said it would stop supporting them this year, but support had since been extended until 2014.

A report by a ministerial review group released in August recommended a national health board be established to oversee the planning and funding of health IT services.

HISAC, acting as the national health IT board, will develop the national health IT plan.

HEALTH WEBSITE

Doctors will soon be able to network with other clinicians online and attend web video conferences through a Health Ministry website.

The website will encourage clinicians to learn and share methods for improving the delivery of healthcare, says ministry national programme manager Alan Spinks.

Doctors will interact through public and private forums, set up online "meeting rooms" and take part in online learning programmes, he says.

"If you have delays in an emergency department in one part of the country, the clinician or service manager can look to other places for best practice.

"They could use video conferencing to hold national conferences so people don't need to travel. The technology is there. It's just not being used as it should be."

The website, which will cost between $500,000 and $600,000 and include a database of clinical research, is being developed by Research New Zealand.

It will be launched with some content - including information for the year on the ministry's six health targets, such as increased immunisation - by the end of May and will be completed by June 2012.

New Zealand Medical Association chairman Peter Foley says it strongly supports anything that improves connectivity and information-sharing between clinicians, but it is important that any information shared be secure.

- © Fairfax NZ News