Australian Medical Association

Transcript: AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, with Richard Aedy, Life Matters, ABC Radio National, Tuesday 17 August 2010

Subject: Election health policy; Collaboration between obstetricians and midwives

The AMA welcomes today’s commitment from Labor that, if elected, it would invest heavily in telemedicine to support and enhance health services as a part of a modern health system.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said the investment would assist doctors to better use communications technology to provide services to patients who would otherwise have limited or no access to these services.

“This is a recognition of the need to embrace communications technology to modernise our health system,” Dr Pesce said.

The Productivity Commission is conducting an inquiry into Caring for Older Australians.

The AMA submission to the inquiry is based on existing AMA policy and general themes discussed at a consultation convened by the AMA between the Productivity Commission and AMA member geriatricians, old age psychiatrists, general practitioners, and rehabilitation and palliative care specialists on 2 July 2010.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the National Broadband Network offers exciting new and improved opportunities in the provision of health care, especially in rural, regional, and remote areas of the country.

Dr Pesce said that the availability of high speed, broadband internet access would allow rural and remote Australians to have access to medical services that they would otherwise have to travel hours to access.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said today that the AMA is pleased that the Healthcare Identifiers legislation has been passed by the Parliament and now looks forward to an acceleration of the implementation of e-Health programs in Australia.

Dr Pesce said healthcare identifiers are an important building block for electronic health records.

“Healthcare identifiers will facilitate the timely and accurate sharing of electronic patient information to improve medical care in Australia,” Dr Pesce said.

“The legislation very clearly provides for the healthcare identifiers to be used solely to identify individuals for the purposes of accessing and sharing individual electronic health information.

General practice representative groups have joined forces this week to push for the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 to be passed.

Members of United General Practice Australia (UGPA) – the Rural Doctors Association of Australia, the Australian General Practice Network, The Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and General Practice Registrars Australia – want to see health identifiers become a routine part of medical practice.

UGPA believes eHealth is long overdue in Australia and a commitment is needed from Government to make eHealth a reality in Australia.

MJA media release - Innovative web services can overcome the barriers that block access to mental health care, according to an article published in a Medical Journal of Australia supplement.

The Delivering timely interventions: the impact of the internet on mental health supplement is the product of a partnership between the Centre for Mental Health Research at the Australian National University and the Brain & Mind Research Institute at the University of Sydney.

Prof Helen Christensen, Director of the Centre for Mental Health Research, and Prof Ian Hickie, Executive Director of the Brain & Mind Research Institute, write that web-based mental health services have the capacity to not only overcome traditional geographical, attitudinal and financial barriers to accessing care, but also to lower overall delivery costs and reduce demands on the clinical workforce.

This position statement supports the development of a shared electronic medical record that links reliable and relevant medical information across healthcare settings. Such a record would provide treating doctors with relevant clinical information that enables them to make informed decisions and treat their patients most effectively.

The AMA supports individuals taking responsibility for their own health and acknowledges that a ‘person-controlled’ electronic health record could encourage patients to take greater control of their own health care. However, a ‘person-controlled’ record would have limited clinical use because it may not contain the relevant information clinicians’ need. A system that allows a shared EMR between health care providers is needed in addition to any person-controlled health record.

The AMA supports the introduction of healthcare identifiers as an important e-health building block. The healthcare identifier will uniquely identify individuals and healthcare providers for the purposes of securely accessing and sharing health information.

The AMA has made one submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee and three submissions to the Department of Health and Ageing on this issue.

AMA Submission to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010

The AMA considers healthcare identifiers are an essential building block towards the implementation of electronic health records, and we are therefore a strong supporter of their introduction. Healthcare identifiers will facilitate the secure access to, and appropriate sharing of, electronic patient information by healthcare providers.

We support the passage of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and the Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010.