Pen CS has added the Australian Medical Association’s free CPD Tracker to its Topbar point of care clinical decision support system.

The CPD Tracker allows doctors to self-manage their continuing professional development (CPD) compliance and is being promoted to GPs as part of legislative changes coming into effect next week that will streamline GPs’ access to Medicare.

Apple has added new health-related features to its iOS operating system for iPhone and Apple Watch, including the ability to share health data with doctors, a new tool to identify, measure and understand changes in a person’s health data, and the option to store records of immunisations and test results directly in the Health app.

Apple says that even if a vaccine provider or medical centre doesn’t currently support its Health Records feature, it can allow patients to download verifiable COVID-19 vaccination or test result records from an online browser or QR code.

NSW Health has confirmed that personal data may have been accessed during the global Accellion cyber attack last December, but says medical record systems were not affected and it is no longer using the legacy software.

US-headquartered Accellion, which specialises in secure file sharing software, saw its legacy File Transfer Appliance software hacked in a zero-day exploit last year, with around 100 organisations around the world affected, including Shell Oil, the University of California, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and NSW Health.

Practice management software vendor MedicalDirector has launched a new security solution for general practices to help them protect their IT systems and data.

MedicalDirector Shield includes six components that the company says work together to protect a practice’s IT systems, including an initial security assessment to help practices understand where and how they may be vulnerable to cyber attacks.

The Heart Foundation’s Heart Health Check Risk Assessment and My Healthy Heart Plan templates have been embedded in the MyGPMPtool (MGT) software app, which is available to GPs using Pen CS’s Topbar application.

The templates are aimed at streamlining the delivery of heart health checks and allow GPs and practice nurses to efficiently carry out absolute cardiovascular disease risk assessment and management using pre-populated patient data and automated CVD risk calculation.

Auckland-headquartered health IT company Clanwilliam Health has launched a new cloud-based system to allow health professionals in New Zealand to access the Connected Health secure messaging network through the cloud.

Health professionals have traditionally needed a HealthLink SecureIT Gateway black box physically installed on their premises to access Connected Health.

Babylon to list on Nasdaq, EU launches digital identity wallet, Fujifilm hack shuts down systems, NHS new GP data sharing scheme, LinkedIn for doctors to list, Biden’s budget for health IT, WhatsApp for vax bookings, FDA regulations on AI

Babylon to go public in $4.2B blank-check deal
MedCity News ~ Elise Reuter ~ 03/06/2021

London-based Babylon still has the largest presence in the U.K., where it has multiple contracts with the National Health Service.

Melbourne-based online appointment booking and patient engagement platform HotDoc went on the front foot this week in a call to the Victorian government to consider its platform for the ramped-up COVID-19 vaccination program, which is now being extended to 40-49 year olds. It is even offering its solution to the Victorian government for free and reckons it can stand something up in 48 hours to help Victorians get vaccinated.

That’s a far cry from Microsoft’s efforts, which despite being awarded a $5 million contract for a vaccine management solution for Victoria last year still hasn’t yet gone live. This platform is more than just a booking solution but you’d have to say come on, Microsoft. It’s June already. We know that alternatives have been put into action in the meantime – Cerner, for instance, has been offering its solution to health service customers in Victoria for Phase 1a – but it beggars belief that Microsoft has been unable to get its solution sorted in the meantime.

eHealth NSW plans to roll out its new electronic transfer of care (eTOC) medications reconciliation application to the rest of the state following successful pilots in four hospitals in NSW of the system, which automates the workflow of checking medication orders as patients move from intensive care units to wards.

eTOC is a web-based application using FHIR APIs and the CSIRO’s Snapper and Ontoserver terminology systems and has been developed internally by eHealth NSW to act as a bridge between the electronic record for intensive care (eRIC) and the statewide electronic medical record (eMR).

eRIC uses iMDSoft’s MetaVision ICU system, while the eMR is Cerner’s Millennium. The first phase of the project is enabling the transfer of medication orders as patients are discharged from ICU to the wards, which was previously done manually between eRIC and eMR. There are future plans to enable similar workflows from wards to ICU.

Waikato District Health Board has been able to restore half of its servers and is sure they have not been compromised following the “sophisticated” cyber attack it experienced just over two weeks ago.

Waikato DHB CEO Kevin Snee said the iPM patient administration system, radiation oncology and diagnostic services will be back online by the end of next week.

WA’s Edith Cowan University is running a survey of the views of residents’ families and aged care facility staff about the use of CCTV in residential aged care.

The study comes as the first trial of CCTV cameras in aged care homes kicks off in two SA Health facilities in Adelaide, which is using an artificial intelligence-enabled audio-visual surveillance and monitoring system to detect falls, calls for help and one- and two-way violence.

Cloud-based medical specialist practice management system vendor Clinic to Cloud has made the switch to Medicare’s new web services platform for claiming, which will become mandatory by March 2022.

Clinic to Cloud is using Claiming.com.au’s APIs for the connectivity, with the new system now in place for Medicare Online, DVA and Eclipse claiming. The new system will also be used to access the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).

Waikato DHB is prioritising its radiation therapy system, radiology imaging and results and the restoration of its iPM patient administration system as part of its recovery from the cyber attack it experienced a fortnight ago.

The DHB said progress had been made to restore systems but meanwhile services across all departments and hospitals, including the 673-bed Waikato Hospital, functioned well over the weekend.

Citadel Health has signed five new contracts this year for its Charm oncology information management system, which it says is the market leader in Australia.

The latest version of Charm is being rolled out by Calvary St. John’s Hospital in Hobart, St Andrews Toowoomba Hospital and the Far North Day Hospital in Cairns.

Pharmacy software vendor Simple Retail has established what it says is the first live Provider Digital Access (PRODA) connection with Services Australia for PBS Online claiming.

The first live site is a pharmacy in Melbourne and the company plans to connect the rest of its pharmacy base over the next few months.

Telstra Health has sold its diagnostic imaging and pathology results delivery service Medinexus to medical imaging and report sharing solution vendor Zed Technologies.

Medinexus is used by more than 30,000 referring practitioners across Australia with over 200 sending facilities across radiology, pathology and public hospitals.

ASX-listed healthcare software solutions vendor Global Health has appointed Michael Davies as its new CEO, taking over from founder and major shareholder Mathew Cherian, who is moving to a new role as executive director.

The company markets the MasterCare+ electronic medical record system, ReferralNet secure messaging, HotHealth patient engagement platform and Lifecard personal health record and has been in operation for 30 years.

Digital passport gets the go-ahead in EU, telehealth and fraud, Scripps ransomware attack, Irish cyber attack, audio-only telemedicine, NHS app for Covid, increase in cyber attacks on healthcare systems

Full steam ahead for adoption of EU digital green cert
Irish Examiner ~ Daniel McConnell ~ 25/05/2021

EU leaders have agreed to adopt the European digital cert and called for its “rapid implementation” at the latest summit in Brussels, which will allow “free movement within the EU”.

The week’s headlines were again dominated by the cyber attack on Waikato DHB, which is still in the very early days of recovery from what turned out to be an extremely significant incident. Officials confirmed that patient and staff data that was sent to the media earlier this week was genuine and had been stolen, but a deadline the alleged perpetrators gave for the payment of a ransom came and went with no public release of the documents.

Bay of Plenty District Health Board is gone live with the Core Schedule vaccine clinic staff rostering module, having already used it in its community-based assessment centres during the pandemic.

Hawkes Bay DHB is also set to roll out the module next month to support the Covid-19 vaccination program. The technology has the ability to manage both DHB and non DHB staff across multiple sites and will centrally co-ordinate the rosters across clinics in the region.

The restructure of ASX-listed online appointment booking and directory service provider 1st Group has been sensationally reversed in corporate manoeuvres this week, with co-founder and managing director Klaus Bartosch returning to the role two months after its board announced his resignation.

Three directors of the board itself have since resigned, including director and interim CEO Louise McElvogue, who was appointed to replace long-term CEO Mr Bartosch in March, and chairman Paul Welch. Major shareholder Michael Emmett has also resigned.

Apple has made its ECG app for Apple Watch series 4, 5 and 6 available in Australia with the latest iOS and watchOS software updates.

The feature is a direct-to-consumer product that enables users to take an electrocardiogram from their wrist. It has an irregular rhythm notification feature that will also occasionally check heart rhythms in the background and send a notification if an irregular heart rhythm that appears to be atrial fibrillation (aFib) is identified.

Medication management app and pharmacy services software vendor MedAdvisor is getting ready to release new Australian Immunisation Register functionality in its PlusOne platform, along with a range of new features to help pharmacies manage COVID-19 vaccination clinics.

New features include the ability to send an invite to patients to get a vaccination by app, email or SMS through PlusOne’s health services hub.

A group claiming to behind the cyber attack on Waikato DHB last week has contacted NZ media outlets claiming it has evidence of stolen patient information, along with staff and financial records.

Media outlets including Radio NZ and the NZ Herald are not revealing the name of the group or the details of any of the alleged stolen information.

Healthcare software vendor Dedalus has named former DXC director of healthcare and life sciences for ANZ Daryll Goodall as its new managing director for Asia Pacific, with plans to grow what is already a large market share in the region as well as making further acquisitions.

It has also taken on the distributorship of iMDsoft’s MetaVision clinical information system for Australia and New Zealand following the European company’s acquisition of the healthcare assets of DXC Technology.

The Australian government has put up $6.9 million to begin the early scoping of a national lung cancer screening program, including money to look into the ICT requirements of a potential national program.

The announcement follows an enquiry held last year into the potential for such a targeted, risk-based screening program, which estimated that in the first 10 years, around 70 per cent of lung cancers would be diagnosed at an early stage, over 12,000 deaths would be prevented that such a program would reduce lung cancer mortality in Australia by 20 per cent in the screened population.

The ACT Health Directorate has dubbed its new real-time prescription monitoring system Canberra Script and promises to begin rolling it out later this year in early adopter sites.

The system is replacing the territory’s DAPIS Online Remote Access (DORA) real time prescription monitoring system and is being built using the same technology platform used by Victoria, South Australia and Queensland for their SafeScript, QScript and ScriptCheckSA systems, built by Fred IT.

Pharmacy solutions vendor Simple Retail will roll out new active script list (ASL) functionality to its users on May 31 after it received confirmation of conformance with the Australian Digital Health Agency requirements for active script lists.

Simple Retail has worked with parent company MediSecure and digital clinical relationship management system vendor Scrypt on the new functionality, which will allow Simple Retail pharmacies to access the My Scrip List (MySL) system launched last month.

India’s digital divide, cyber attack paralyses Ireland’s health system, US views on contact tracing, remote control of insulin pumps, Babylon expands US footprint, iPads for ambos, telehealth works for seniors in primary care, Google’s AI for dermatology

Why India's digital divide is hampering vaccine access
Devex ~ Mahima Jain ~ 20/05/2021

The Das family are among the 70 million people who have registered on Co-WIN and are scrambling for unavailable vaccines.

Irish health system struggling to recover from cyberattack
AP ~ Sylvia Hui, Danica Kirka and Frank Bajak ~ 19/05/2021

More than 2,000 patient-facing IT systems were affected, and around 80,000 devices were linked to such systems throughout the health service.

It was not a great week for cyber security in healthcare around the world as malicious actors let loose, taking out Waikato DHB’s IT systems on Tuesday and having a go at the Alaskan Department of Health later in the week. Those incidents follow the massive attack on Ireland’s healthcare service last week, which was described by its CEO as catastrophic and affected the whole country. It is still recovering, but so is the Scripps Health network in San Diego, which continues to struggle two weeks later.

Early reports linked the perpetrators of the Irish attack to Waikato but that has since been disputed by the Ministry of Health, and it is still not clear who or what is responsible. One unexpected consequence has been disruption to the DHB’s payroll system – not only are clinicians having to revert to pen and paper, but the beancounters are too. The Victorian health system, which has had its fair share of cyber issues in the last few years, got a bit of cash in Thursday’s state budget to fix some of its cyber gaps, including money for next generation anti-virus protections, a Security Operations Centre, and a recovery service in the event of a successful attack.

The New Zealand government has allocated $400 million over four years to invest in data and digital infrastructure for the healthcare system, including money to begin the first tranche of Hira, the national health information platform (nHIP).

District health boards have also been given a $700m capital investment for facilities, infrastructure and technology, and there is money to develop an implementation business case for the replacement of the ICT supporting the national breast screening program, which will be given $50m overall in capital and operating costs.

Melbourne’s The Alfred Hospital has signed a contract with medical device manufacturer Becton Dickinson (BD) and electronic medical record vendor Cerner to implement the first bidirectional integration between BD’s Alaris infusion pumps and the Cerner EMR in Australia and New Zealand.

The Alfred is due to go live with the new process in its ICU in the next few months and may roll it out to the rest of the hospital in future.

The roll-out of IT systems to support New Zealand’s Covid-19 immunisation program is facing challenging timeframes with some aspects being finalised just in time for each stage, a report from the Office of the Auditor-General has found.

Auditor-General John Ryan said the audit showed the health sector was working hard to roll out the Covid-19 vaccination program but a significant scale-up was required to achieve the government’s vaccination goals.

Meanwhile, the CEO of healthcare software vendor Orion Health Ian McCrae has renewed his criticisms of the procurement process for the COVID vaccination register (CIR) as well as its cost, and for the time the Ministry of Health has taken to roll IT support out.

A recommendation by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Safety and Quality that there be universal adoption of the My Health Record in residential aged care facilities by July 2022 is overly optimistic and unlikely to be achieved, experts say.

And while the market-leading aged care software vendors are all able to connect to the My Health Record, the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) estimates that only 10 per cent of aged care providers are registered with the system and only one per cent are actively using it, an industry webinar heard this week.

Waikato DHB’s information systems team is working on the theory that the malicious attack that caused the shutdown of its IT systems yesterday was an incursion via an email attachment.

Waikato DHB CEO Kevin Snee told Radio NZ the attackers had not yet threatened to release patient information, just a demand for a ransom, which would not be paid.

Pharmacy IT solution vendor Fred IT will launch its new WhatsApp-based prescription ordering system for electronic prescriptions at the Australian Pharmacy Professional (APP) conference on the Gold Coast this week.

The solution is thought to be the first in Australia to use the WhatsApp messaging platform for prescription dispensing requests and will use WhatsApp’s chatbot function to let patients choose which script to request and when.

Melbourne’s Alfred Health will roll out 3M’s 360 Encompass clinical documentation integrity (CDI) and computer-assisted coding system across its facilities.

A 3M spokesperson said the platform is used by 2000 healthcare organisations in the US, Canada and Europe but this will be the first deployment in Australia.

Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein has handed the tough health portfolio to his deputy Jeremy Rockliff in the newly re-elected government’s new cabinet.

Mr Rockliff, a farmer by profession who has been in parliament since 2002, also has responsibility for mental health and wellbeing, and community services and development. He keeps advanced manufacturing and defence industries interests from his previous portfolio.

A cyber security incident has knocked out Waikato District Health Board’s IT systems, affecting clinical services across its five hospitals, including the 673-bed Waikato Hospital.

The DHB issued a statement saying it was experiencing a full outage of its information services as well as landline phone services, including the main hospital number.

The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) has released an enhancement to the immunisation status section of the My Health Record, including showing any due, overdue or upcoming immunisations.

This includes COVID-19 vaccination status and National Immunisation Program (NIP) schedule details. ADHA says the ability to see overdue or upcoming immunisations will be especially useful for parents to keep up with their child’s immunisations.

ASX-listed Hills Limited has appointed experienced healthcare technology executive David Clarke as its new CEO, taking over from David Lenz, who is retiring in July.

Mr Clarke was previously CEO of Corum Group, which makes dispensing and point-of-sale software for community pharmacies, for four years before resigning in August 2020.

According to Hills, Mr Clarke has worked with the Medical Software Industry Association to lead the taskforce coordinating the technical readiness of industry and governments for the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out throughout the primary healthcare network.

Pandemic boost to bottom line, EHRs in Ireland, Japan’s vax roll-out, NHS to trial virtual wards and AI, Mayo and Kaiser invest in hospital in the home, Ethiopia palliative care app, GP data extraction tool, NHS App for COVID passport live, Walmart buys telehealth provider

Digital health startups saw better-than-expected revenue during the pandemic
MedCity News ~ Elise Reuter ~ 13/05/2021

According to a survey conducted by Catalyst @ Health 2.0, a whopping 41% of digital health companies said their revenue was above expectations last year.

Leaving a paper trail behind
Irish Medical Times ~ Paulie Doyle ~ 11/05/2021

Electronic health records are the norm in many European countries – so why is the Irish health service still using paper?

There was a lot of spin in Tuesday’s federal budget about what it means for digital health, but there was quite a lot of money too. The spin was about how the government was transforming digital health with its investment. The money was about half a billion dollars.

There was the previously announced $300m over two years for the My Health Record, which will be used for “leveraging the connections already in place and ensuring a more coordinated healthcare future for Australia”, whatever that means, “while also stimulating economic recovery from COVID-19” and “accelerating a new surge of innovations”.

ACT Health has gone live with its new booking system for its two COVID-19 mass vaccination clinics, using the MyDHR rolled out in association with electronic medical record vendor Epic.

Eligible Canberrans are being asked to sign up to MyDHR using their Medicare card to confirm their eligibility. An invite to book an appointment will then be sent within 24 hours of signing up, and the system also allows people to cancel or reschedule their appointments.

MyDHR is the public portal face of the ACT’s Digital Health Record, which will be rolled out throughout the ACT’s public hospitals and community health centres in September 2022.

The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) has released a second industry offer round worth up to $60,000 to help clinical information system vendors and mobile medications management app developers implement full electronic prescribing functionality.

“Full” functionality includes active script lists (ASL) capability and what ADHA describes as increased technical functionality for clinicians through the introduction of chart-based requirements.

The federal government is claiming it will “transform digital health in Australia” through $503 million worth of measures in the 2021-22 budget, including funds for My Health Record, the Healthcare Identifiers Service, electronic medication charts for aged care and the Health Products Portal.

The My Health Record system has received the lion’s share of funding, with $301.8 million allocated over two years to ongoing operations and enhancements. While details are scarce, the plans for the next two years appear to revolve around already announced initiatives such as the new API gateway and an aged care transfer document.

Funding has been secured in the 2021-22 federal budget to move ahead with the Department of Health’s voluntary patient enrolment scheme, which is to be called MyGP.

The initiative, which was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, is aimed at improving continuity of care and will provide extra money for patients with chronic illnesses who enrol with their regular general practice.

$50.7 million has been made available in yesterday’s federal budget for technology systems to support the use MyGP, which will encompass telehealth and other remote healthcare services to provide greater flexibility in care delivery.

The federal government has released its response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety with a $17.7 billion package over five years in yesterday’s budget.

The government has accepted or accepted in principle 126 of the 148 recommendations, including universal adoption of the My Health Record system and the roll out of electronic medication charts in residential aged care facilities, with dedicated funding of $45.4 million.

The full response was released on budget day and includes funding directed towards helping older Australians to access information about aged care and navigate the aged care system, including money to continue the operation of My Aged Care, as well as additional investments in digital and face-to-face assistance.

The big ticket items in the 2021-22 federal budget for digital health are the previously announced funds under the government’s $1.2 billion digital economy strategy for enhancements to the My Health Record system and myGov.

There is also funding for digital health measures in the government’s $17.7 billion response to the Royal Commission into Safety and Quality in Aged Care, along with the extension of MBS item numbers for telehealth, and money for digital mental health services under the $2 billion national mental health and suicide prevention plan.

At a glance:

Townsville Hospital and Health Service is running a trial of a new artificial intelligence tool and natural language processing to scan Queensland’s Cerner integrated electronic medical record (ieMR) for early warning signs of sepsis in patients.

The health service is working with Clinical Excellence Queensland, eHealth Queensland and the Clinical Excellence Commission NSW to test the technology, which has also been rolled out at Westmead Hospital in Sydney.

Electronic payments and business banker Tyro has bought Medipass Solutions, the digital health payments platform launched in 2016 that is now integrated with 17 cloud-based practice management and booking systems.

The merged companies are expected to now offer Australia’s largest digital and terminal-based payments platform to the healthcare sector.

A known error that intermittently duplicates keystrokes when using Microsoft’s RemoteApp feature is understood to have caused the issue affecting medication dosages in South Australia’s Sunrise electronic medical record last week.

The error appeared to replicate the last digit for dosages on medication orders, with 10mg being displayed as 100mg and 15mg as 155mg.

The New Zealand government will invest up to $55.6 million in its national breast cancer screening program, including money for new IT infrastructure, as well as money to support the change to human papillomavirus (HPV) testing for cervical cancer.

The funding will be made available in next week’s budget, and it is hoped the new systems will be up and running in the next two years. A lack of suitable IT has been cited for delays in rolling out the new test for HPV, the cause of 99 per cent of cervical cancers.

NHS booking site leaking, WHO hub for pandemics in Berlin, COVID data exposures, global EMR market in 2020, Canada’s COVID vaccine tracking systems, vaccinated workforce tracking system, command centre links Montreal hospitals

NHS Covid jab booking site leaks people’s vaccine status
The Guardian ~ Alex Hern ~ 06/05/2021

NHS Digital is revising its process for booking Covid vaccinations in England after the discovery of a “seriously shocking failure” that leaked medical data from the site.

Orion Health CEO Ian McCrae didn’t hold back this week in a letter he penned to New Zealand’s Auditor-General John Ryan, asking Mr Ryan if his beancounters could take a close look at the procurement of the new Salesforce-based solution being rolled out to support the COVID-19 vaccination program.

Calling the reported expenditure of $38 million for the system scandalous, Mr McCrae took the NZ Ministry of Health (MoH) to task over what looks like a behind-closed-doors approach to the procurement as well as its expense, claiming he and his team could have had a system up and running in a month for 50 grand and a bit of spare change.

Health IT vendor Orion Health has asked New Zealand’s Auditor-General to investigate the Ministry of Health’s procurement of the new National Immunisation Solution (NIS), saying the ministry had ignored normal processes and had used incorrect information in its business case.

In a letter to Auditor-General John Ryan, Orion Health CEO Ian McCrae said the reported $38 million price tag for the new system, which is being developed by the ministry using Salesforce and AWS technology, was a “scandalous figure” and that an upgrade to the existing National Immunisation Register (NIR), which Orion provides, was all that was needed.

The Australian government has promised $301.8 million in funding in next week’s federal budget to continue the operation of the My Health Record system, along with $200.1 million to overhaul myGov.

The government says the money is aimed at enhancing the My Health Record and expanding the “digital identity system”, but it is unclear as to whether it is money for new features or for continuing operations.

The last big funding boost for My Health Record was in 2019, when money was provided for its ongoing operation to Accenture until the end of the 2021 financial year.

UnitingCare Queensland (UCQ) has confirmed it was the victim of an attack by suspected Russian ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation Sodinokibi, which also trades under the name of Revil/Sodin.

The attack, the first known one by this particular organisation on healthcare systems in Australia or New Zealand, knocked UCQ’s digital systems offline on April 26, leaving them inaccessible since then.

Tasmania is expanding its new statewide electronic referral system to private specialists from this month following a proof of concept trial with GPs and three hospital outpatient clinics last year.

The system has been built by secure messaging vendor HealthLink and Hobart-based eHealth firm Healthcare Software in close partnership with Primary Health Tasmania, the Tasmanian Department of Health and the Tasmanian Health Service.

The project has developed standardised, statewide digital templates that can be auto-populated with key referral details using HealthLink’s Smart Forms technology from within the Best Practice and MedicalDirector practice management systems and sent to hospital outpatients departments as well as between private practitioners.

ASX-listed digital health technology vendor Global Health has released a new version of its HotHealth patient engagement platform featuring new HL7 data element messaging and the option for patients to link their Lifecard personal health record to HotHealth to pre-fill key data points.

HotHealth is Global Health’s patient engagement solution for allied health, pharmacy and general practices that offers online bookings, chat rooms, video consultations and interactive whiteboards.

Emergency physician and clinical toxicologist Frank Daly has been named as the new CEO of the Northern Territory Department of Health, taking over from Catherine Stoddart, who resigned late last year after four years in the role.

Dr Daly worked at Royal Perth Hospital for 10 years as an emergency physician and clinical toxicologist, director of emergency medicine and director of clinical reform, as well as in managerial roles.

Recent figures from the crowd-sourced FluTracking public health surveillance system show how the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically affected the 2020 flu season, with the number of laboratory confirmed cases of flu in January 2021 just one per cent of those seen in January 2020.

Developed by Hunter New England Health and the University of Newcastle, FluTracking started in 2006 with 400 participants but by 2020, Australians and New Zealanders providing weekly data peaked at more than 150,000.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has acquired digital health services directory and appointment booking system vendor Whitecoat and will bring the company into its business banking arm.

CBA and Whitecoat have worked together since 2018 on the CommBank Health Claim service, which facilitates payments, claims and bookings along with real-time settlement, reporting and reconciliation capabilities.

Telstra Health’s primary and community health clinical information system Communicare has undergone a big upgrade, featuring enhancements to its prescribing and medication tools and workflows, immunisation functionality for the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out as well as Telstra Health’s new SMS service, TH Notify.

Communicare version 21.1 also includes a clinical decision support upgrade for drug to condition interaction checking, with the ability to issue a token for electronic prescribing in a future release in the coming months as well as compliance with the new secure messaging standards to come online in the next upgrade in June.

An analysis of Medicare data for general practitioner services over the last year shows that fewer than one per cent were provided by video, despite the introduction of new telehealth items for the COVID-19 response in March 2020.

The analysis of MBS data for GP services between April 2020 to March 2021 by Melbourne GP Andrew Baird shows that of the almost 150 million GP services, 72 per cent were conducted in person, 27.4 per cent were by phone and just 0.6 per cent were by video.

State of play for vaccine passports and passes, UK to use NHS app, vax status synced with flight details, telehealth firm valued at $2b, FHIR endpoints for interoperability, US Dept of Defense’s massive Cerner roll-out, telecoms hopping on telehealth bandwagon

A look at Covid-19 vaccine ‘passports,’ passes and apps around the globe
New York Times ~ Heather Murphy ~ 26/04/2021

A variety of digital and old-fashioned approaches are being used to confirm vaccination for entry to public places. But the world is still far from a universal standard of proof for crossing borders.

Digital health start-up Kry triples valuation to $2 billion in new funding round
CNBC ~ Ryan Browne ~ 27/04/2021

The company operates under the name Kry in Sweden, Norway and Germany and as a separate brand called Livi in the U.K. and France.

Fred IT made the news this week with the launch of Australia’s first active script list (ASL), which Fred has dubbed My Script List (MySL). The system has been tested in Tasmania over the last few months and is now live for Tassie pharmacies using Fred’s dispense systems.

The other states and territories are due to follow in the next couple of months, although the system is not yet fully up and running for GPs as the practice management software vendors, who are constantly under the pump with requests for new features and functionality, still have a bit of work to do.

Adam Powick has been voted CEO of Deloitte Australia by the company’s partners, following the unexpected departure of Richard Deutsch in March.

Mr Powick is well-known to the health IT industry, having a special interest and background in digital healthcare.

Health IT executive Darren Jones has been promoted to country manager for Australia and New Zealand for InterSystems, leading the company’s operations in the region with oversight of major information systems deployments including the delivery of the Northern Territory’s single electronic patient record.

Mr Jones has a long history with InterSystems, with roles including general manager and regional director for TrakHealth, which InterSystems bought in 2007.

NSW will open up bookings for COVID-19 vaccinations at its new mass vaccination centre at Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush on May 24, two weeks after the centre opens, to allow time to get a booking system up and running.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian announced the new centre, to operate from a commercial building at the venue, which also houses a drive-through testing clinic and a Commonwealth COVID-19 vaccine clinic, last week.

Pharmacy IT solution vendor Fred IT is getting ready to launch its new WhatsApp-powered messaging solution to allow patients to request their prescriptions be dispensed and to specify pick-up or delivery times from their pharmacy.

The solution is thought to be the first in Australia to use the WhatsApp platform for prescription dispensing requests and will use WhatsApp’s chatbot function to let patients choose which script to request and when.

Pen CS has made the MyGPMPtool (MGT) available in its Topbar clinical decision support platform to help healthcare providers create chronic disease management care plans and health assessments more easily.

MGT is a browser-based tool that is also available as a standalone app, but using Topbar’s API allows it to integrate with GP practice management systems Best Practice and MedicalDirector.

The federal government has agreed to extend MBS-funded telehealth services until the end of the year, putting aside $114 million as part of the upcoming budget.

The item numbers have been extended several times since first announced in March 2020 to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, and the government is promising to work with peak bodies to co-design permanent post pandemic telehealth programs.

Digital systems are currently offline at UnitingCare Queensland (UCQ) following a cyber attack on the health and aged care provider on Sunday.

UCQ runs the 535-bed Wesley Hospital in Brisbane, St Andrews War Memorial Hospital Brisbane and Australia’s first digital hospital, St Stephen’s Hospital at Hervey Bay.

Fred IT’s new digital list of prescriptions, dubbed My Script List (MySL), is now live in Tasmanian pharmacies using Fred's dispensing system, with plans to roll it out to the other states – and other pharmacy and GP software systems – over the coming months.

MySL is the first Department of Health conformant active script list (ASL) to go live. It will work alongside the new electronic tokens as well as existing paper prescriptions and will hold an electronic list of medications, allowing patients, their doctors and their pharmacists to view all of the active prescriptions the patient is on.

Auckland region primary health organisation ProCare has signed an interoperability agreement with GP software vendor Medtech Global as part of Medtech’s FHIR-led integration program.

The agreement will see ProCare integrate its ProFusion product with Medtech’s new Application Layer Exchange (ALEX) platform, which uses Microsoft’s Azure FHIR software to enable secure integration and interoperability with patient management systems.

Nuances of Microsoft deal, former PM lobbied for NHS data, South Africa’s vax booking system goes live then runs into problems, child health record for Lancashire, AliveCor sues Apple, digital health deal between Israel and UAE, Denmark’s coronapas, digital health in Ireland, Alexa finds vaxes, F for EMRs

Microsoft puts AI at heart of digital health strategy with Nuance deal
Pharmaforum ~ Phil Taylor ~ 16/04/2021

Microsoft has made its aspirations in digital health clear with a whopping $19.7 billion deal to buy Nuance Communications and its artificial intelligence platform for speech recognition that is increasingly being used for clinical applications.

David Cameron ‘lobbied Matthew Gould for access to NHS staff data’
Digital Health News ~ Andrea Downey ~ 22/04/2021

Former Prime Minister David Cameron reportedly lobbied NHSX chief Matthew Gould for access to NHS staff data to support the rollout of a payment app, it has been revealed.

Sweeping changes are afoot in the New Zealand healthcare sector, with the government this week announcing its response to last year’s Health and Disability System Review report. Gone will be the 20 district health boards to be replaced by a national health service called Health NZ that promises to do what has never been done before – work for patients, for the health workforce, and the wider community.

Using technology to deliver better access and better outcomes is high on the agenda, and Health Minister Andrew Little seems keen to emphasise how digital tools can help achieve long wished for goals like bringing services closer to people’s homes and communities, reducing duplication and improving IT procurement practices, and ensuring patients don’t have to share the same information time and time again.

Decades of promising but failing to deliver digital tools to improve health outcomes and enable better access to healthcare can be overcome with a fundamental restructure of the New Zealand health system, Health Minister Andrew Little says.

Mr Little announced sweeping reforms to the health system this week which will see the 20 district health boards disbanded and replaced by one national organisation dubbed Health NZ.

Brisbane’s Metro North Hospital and Health Service opened its new Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) in February, a brand new 182-bed digital ready hospital on the Herston campus that opened live with the full stack of the statewide Cerner integrated electronic medical record (ieMR).

The new hospital, built as a public private partnership and specifically designed to not only offer much needed rehabilitation services for Metro North but also for low acuity surgical patients to take the pressure off surgical waiting lists, is also the first in Queensland to integrate Masimo’s medical devices with the ieMR.

The hospital is also using Cerner’s Enterprise Scheduling Management (ESM) solution to handle referrals from not just Metro North but other HHSs, and to help with patient load through Queensland Health’s Surgery Connect program, which contracts with the private sector to deliver elective surgical services.

Seven new sites across Western Sydney Local Health District have gone live with eHealth NSW’s patient WiFi service, which is now available in 308 sites across the state.

The new service replaces the previous locally managed LHD offering at Auburn, Blacktown and Mt Druitt hospitals, along with community health centres and the children’s short stay unit and children’s emergency department in the newly opened Central Acute Services Building (CASB) in the Westmead health precinct.

ASX-listed online directory and appointment booking platform vendor 1st Group has appointed technologist and strategist Louise McElvogue as interim CEO following the resignation of long-term CEO Klaus Bartosch after 10 years.

1st Group has also ramped up the implementation of its Vaccine Connect platform for booking and tracking for WA Health, expanding on its contract for booking vaccinations for frontline workers in phase 1a to supporting WA Health's plans for phase 1b.

Medical indemnity insurer Avant has launched an app that alerts users of its PracticeHub healthcare management platform that a practitioner’s Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) registration has lapsed.

The Ahpra Alerts app offers direct integration with Ahpra, allowing healthcare organisations to check a practitioner’s registration status, with regular alerts to help reduce compliance risk for health workers and patients.

Telstra Health has rebranded its suite of digital health solutions for hospitals as Kyra, following several years of development work that included a complete upgrade of its electronic medical record in 2020.

Telstra Health says the Kyra suite is available on mobile devices to give clinicians access to patient information in the right place at the right time.

Sydney-based skin cancer laboratory Southern Sun Pathology has gone live with Sectra’s digital pathology solution, allowing pathologists to examine skin tissues remotely and share images more efficiently.

The solution will be integrated with the two different laboratory information systems (LIS) used at Southern Sun Pathology and its Gold Coast subsidiary Helix Pathology, a histopathology and cytology lab which Southern Sun bought recently.

The Aged Care Industry Information Technology Council (ACIITC) is surveying residential aged care providers on their use of clinical software and what are the main barriers to and influences over further uptake.

The research, commissioned by the Australian Digital Health Agency, will also investigate how clinical software interacts or interfaces with other software systems, particularly medication management and electronic prescribing software, as well as how GPs relate to aged care clinical software.

GP software product PrimaryClinic Medical is now able to issue token-based electronic prescriptions, with vendor Global Health planning to integrate the capability with its Lifecard personal health record later in the year.

PrimaryClinic Medical version 4.7.0 has been listed on the Australian Digital Health Agency’s electronic prescribing conformance register, and now supports all three forms of prescribing including traditional paper, image-based and electronic prescribing.

Google trying again with PHRs? evidence for AI tools, Denmark’s coronapas, Malaysia’s Immunitee, US VA EHR, Facebook’s vaccine finder, Microsoft/AXA digital health platform, eReferral app cuts DNAs, Dedalus and the NHS, SMART health cards for vax credentials, COVID-detecting mobile phone sensors

Google is exploring a health record tool for patients
STAT ~ Erin Brodwin ~ 09/04/2021

After 13 years, Google is coming back for patient health records. The tech giant has launched an early user feedback program aimed at exploring how patients might want to see, organize, and share their own medical record data.

FDA-cleared AI devices lack critical information on performance, equity
MedCity News ~ Elise Reuter ~ 13/04/2021

In a review of 130 FDA-cleared AI tools, researchers found that the vast majority of them relied on retrospective studies.

We are still not sure how Australia’s vaccine roll-out can be both on a war footing while at the same time definitely not a race, but things are moving along both in Australia and New Zealand in the early stages of each country’s mass vaccination plans.

The New Zealand Ministry of Health’s deputy director-general for digital and data Shayne Hunter announced yesterday that MOH will release a national booking system for its roll-out at the end of next month. We’ve been critical in the past of Australia’s tardy pace in developing a booking solution and the same can be levelled at the Kiwis, although they say they are only getting their system up and running as the priority initially had been on the National Contact Tracing Solution. That was followed in swift order by the COVID-19 Immunisation Register (CIR), which is an interim system built using Salesforce to replace the legacy National Immunisation Register (NIR) and which will be further developed into the permanent National Immunisation Solution (NIS).

The New Zealand government aims to roll out a national booking system for COVID-19 vaccinations at the end of May, allowing people to pre-register and then book an appointment that suits their time.

The booking system, which will use a plug-in to the Salesforce-based national COVID-19 immunisation register (CIR), will allow people to book for their first and second dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine that all New Zealanders will receive, but will also allow people to change their booking to another location for the second vaccination if necessary.

The Australasian Institute of Digital Health (AIDH) has released its strategic plan for 2021-2024, focusing on building the digital health workforce and taking digital health to every healthcare professional.

It plans to ask its 2000-strong membership to drive health workforce reform to retain the region’s global standing in healthcare and keep up the momentum for change precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Zealand’s Ministry of Health is running a month-long trial of an app that connects to wearable smart devices to see if it can detect COVID-19 in border workers.

The ëlarm app has been developed by Kiwi data analytics firm Datamine and uses artificial intelligence to inform users of early physiological changes that might indicate they are becoming unwell, several days before they experience symptoms.

The ministry’s deputy director-general of data and digital Shayne Hunter said MoH has organised a month-long trial of the ëlarm app, which connects to wearable devices such as Fitbit, Apple Watch and other smart watches or fitness trackers.

Researchers have proposed the inclusion of a flag in general practice clinical software that would populate the MBS and PBS datasets in order to identify residential aged care residents and enhance monitoring of aged care.

They have also recommended the federal government continue and expand access to MBS funded telehealth services to aged care residents following new figures showing how the COVID-19 pandemic saw a decline in face-to-face visits by GPs to Victorian RACFs.

Telehealth provider PII Australia and health management app developer Wanngi have joined forces to offer a private telehealth solution to help Aboriginal communities to make better lifestyle choices and improve their quality of life.

The partners have received private funding over three years to pilot the program in a Western Australian community and kicked off the new service just before Easter.

It is using PII Australia’s high-definition/low bandwidth video consultation solution combined with Wanngi’s health management platform, which will be used to build personal health accounts that will have symptoms, chronic health conditions, medications, and immunisations uploaded to one secure place.

Eligible patients in metropolitan Adelaide can now be referred to South Australia’s new My Home Hospital service through the SA Ambulance Service (SAAS) as well as GPs, specialists or hospital emergency departments.

My Home Hospital is being delivered in a joint venture between Calvary Health Care and Medibank and is using Telstra Health’s virtual health monitoring solution.

Microsoft will buy speech recognition and AI developer Nuance Communications in a $US19.6 billion ($A25.6b) deal that will massively expand Microsoft’s healthcare industry cloud strategy.

Nuance has a market-leading portfolio of products for clinical speech recognition, many of which are built on Microsoft Azure, including the cloud hosted Dragon Medical One and PowerScribe One for radiology reporting. It also markets the on-premise Dragon Medical Practice.

Brisbane-based practice intelligence platform Cubiko has launched a range of new features to support general practices in rolling out the COVID-19 vaccine.

The new vaccination support cabinet extends the existing platform to provide insights into financial sustainability, continuity of care and clarity over workforce concerns in administering the COVID-19 vaccine.

A much delayed trial of using CCTV in residential aged care facilities for resident safety is now under way in two SA Health facilities in Adelaide.

The trial is using an artificial intelligence-enabled audio-visual surveillance and monitoring system developed by local electronic security solutions firm Sturdie Trade Services, which can detect falls, calls for help and one- and two-way violence.

South Australia’s ScriptCheckSA real-time prescription monitoring system has gone live across the state following a short trial, allowing doctors and pharmacists to identify patients who might be abusing prescription drugs and are at risk of overdose.

The software underlying the $7.5 million program has been built by Fred IT, based on the SafeScript system it built for Victoria that went live in 2019.