health system set fo an e-revolution

Interesting article in todays SMH. Perhaps some additional revenuw for ISF on home turf. Here are some snippets from the Article:

So Ringwood is pleased to hear the federal government will introduce shared electronic health records. If the roll-out goes to plan, by July 1, 2012, any patient will be able to ask their doctor to create one. They will be uploaded on the web to be accessed - with patient permission - by any of the nation's 700,000 registered medical and allied professionals. The first step is complete: a 16-digit number called a ''health identifier'' has been assigned to every Australian known to Medicare. It can be used in all health encounters from cradle to grave.

This number is one of the reasons privacy advocates do not share Ringwood's delight. They fear a stalking horse for another run at a national identity card. They also fear e-health records will mean Big Brother peeking through the keyhole of a very private place: the consulting room.

The e-records are a central plank of a massive IT revolution in the nation's health system. They are to be followed by a secure electronic messaging system - rather like encrypted emails - as well as shared e-systems for referrals, hospital discharges, pathology results and prescriptions. The idea is that computers in all the parts of our vast web of health services will finally be able to talk to each other.

Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, a former president of the Australian Medical Association, is lead clinician for the National E-Health Transition Authority and a true believer in what the technology will deliver for patients and doctors. He says ''the rubber hit the road'' for the project when federal Parliament - in the final hours of the last sitting before it rose for the election - passed a bill providing $466.7 million over two years to develop electronic health records.

The search for better care is not the only reason Western governments are backing e-health; they hope it will help contain ballooning costs. Eighty per cent of the health ''burden'' in Australia is now made up of chronic illness, which requires long-running care; the population is ageing; and shortages of health workers are expected to drive up their wages.

It has been estimated that e-health could save $8.7 billion over the first 10 years alone - not as instant cash savings but by flattening ''the exponential trajectory'' of demand and cost projections, according to a 2008 report by Booz & Company. Two-thirds of the expected savings would come from reduced errors and better medical practices. If health costs went unchecked, Booz argued, the system would struggle, patient safety would be compromised and universal healthcare might have to be rationed.