Too much 'personal control' reduces the effectiveness of the PCEHR
AMA Vice President, Professor Geoffrey Dobb, said this week that the overriding emphasis on ‘personal control’ of the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) has stalled its implementation and that there should have been equal emphasis on clinical utility in the development of the PCEHR.
The AMA’s views on the way forward for the PCEHR are detailed in its submission to the Federal Government’s Review of the PCEHR, released this week.
Professor Dobb said that the AMA also recommends the PCEHR be an opt-out system, rather than the current opt-in arrangement.
In its submission, the AMA offers the following priority improvements to accelerate adoption of the PCEHR:
- address clinical utility and increased patient safety by ensuring key clinical information is available to all treating doctors, for all of their patients with Electronic Health Records;
- address clinical utility and increased patient safety by moving quickly to assist other medical specialties and healthcare organisations to have the capability to view and upload relevant documents to the PCEHR;
- address clinical useability by ensuring that medical software provides seamless access and upload of agreed documents and information to the PCEHR; and
- ensure that when existing and new functionality is added to the PCEHR, such as pathology and diagnostic imaging results, it is streamlined and does not create new work activities for treating clinicians.
The PCEHR Review will report back to Health Minister, Peter Dutton, by mid-December 2013.
