Deancm

"The Rudd government will spend $467 million over the next two years to give every Australian who wants one, an electronic health record by July 2012."

This sounds a lot like big brother to me. Next it will be linked to a national ID card system and linked to your DNA.

Is anybody comfortable with having all their personal medical records out there in the internet ether for any competent hacker to hack?

Wibble Wobble

Right, because the databases of passports of every country are hacked on a daily basis. /sarcasm

Come on...

bcworld

It's probably a lot more secure than a room full of paper in the GPs office.

coolshadows

I don't get it? all our medical records are already online since we arrived. We've changed GPs and they still have access to them so they are obviously (?) shared.

What did I miss?

ABCDiamond

It is taking some time to get it done.

February 19, 2010

The original IEHR business case was completed in October 2008.

AN updated business case for a national e-health record rollout is being prepared for the Council of Australian Governments, but there is no guarantee the project will be considered this year.

National E-Health Transition Authority chief executive Peter Fleming said the business case for Individual E-Health Records (IEHR) "has been built, and it clearly ties into the government's overall health agenda and recommendations from the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission".
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/aust...-1225832211028

December 2007
Electronic Health Records
http://www.openforum.com.au/electronic_health_records

Must admit I am puzzled though, I just read this from todays paper
but I know that my x-rays were recently viewed by my doctor using a computer to get the image from the X-ray place.

This new thing appears to be for individuals to be able to view their own records.

Deancm

And passports contain personally sensitive information such as your prior medical history?

Deancm

However GP's records are not centralised and the govt has no access to it.

From http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/...tronic_hea.php

"Hackers last week broke into a Virginia state Web site used by pharmacists to track prescription drug abuse. They deleted records on more than 8 million patients and replaced the site's homepage with a ransom note demanding $10 million for the return of the records, according to a posting on Wikileaks.org, an online clearinghouse for leaked documents."

"I have your [expletive] In *my* possession, right now, are 8,257,378 patient records and a total of 35,548,087 prescriptions. Also, I made an encrypted backup and deleted the original. Unfortunately for Virginia, their backups seem to have gone missing, too. Uhoh For $10 million, I will gladly send along the password."

jad n rich

Docs can usually already draw up the entire list of every blood test, scan etc youve had done, chemists can access your centerlink details, we were already part way there.

Rudd just loves to make out hes created some new 'scheme'

northernbird

Don't go back to Blighty then the NPfIT programme has been planned for years in the UK.

Deancm

And there's been absolutely loads of problems with it, not to mention it has gone over 4 times over budget.

I wonder what's going to happen now the Tories are in and the cuts will start happening... I wouldn't be surprised if this project ends up in the bin.

northernbird

Probably, but I was merely trying to point out that these initiatives can happen anywhere not just in crappy old Australia

Deancm

But 'where' is irrelevant. The point of my original post is that it is just another step closer to totalitarianism, which ironically always seems to be more prevalent under a Labour govt.

What possible reason is there for the govt. to centralise a private persons medical records?

IvanM

Will be interesting to see if it can be done as cheaply as that.

northernbird

Sorry, but nearly all your posts are slating Australia I just assumed this was the same!

Personally I don't care who knows my health details. I worry about identity theft far more, should we abolish computerised banking records, driving licence details etc etc.

Deancm

Yes, yes and yes.

If you worry about identity theft then surely you would worry about e-health records as it will be linked to Medicare.