Consumer’s opinion of the PCEHR
It is not easy to find balanced information about the PCEHR. For that reason I welcome the information prepared by the Australian Privacy Foundation. The APF has been an advocate for privacy protections, representing the public interest to governments, corporations and industry associations.
The APF has always strongly supported eHealth, but in a press release Dr Juanito Fernando said: “Neither clinicians nor the rest of the community understand the system, let alone the full implementation details.”
The APF has prepared two FAQs: one for health consumers (great for waiting areas) and one for clinicians. The government’s FAQs about the PCEHR can be found here.
Let’s hope the new information will improve awareness about the PCEHR and stimulate discussion about the many grey areas.
Yes Dr Fernando and the APF, plus other privacy advocacy groups provide a great overview of the PCEHR and eHealth from a privacy and general perspective.
A couple of key points for clinicians is the medico-legal liability position that most would not be aware of and the fact that they must obtain the patient’s permission each time they upload details to the patients PCEHR record (civil penalties can be rather hefty for wrongful collection and disclosure).
A couple of key points for patients is that the government has the ability to do anything with your personal information that they like once you have registered and that the records and that the PCEHR system is not totally secure.
A key take-away from another recent survey is that 58% of voters believe that PCEHR is purely designed to assist government and not the healthcare providers or patients. Another 12% of voters indicated that the PCEHR was of no benefit at all. Interesting stats based on a billion dollar system.
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Thanks Paul!
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Very helpful documents – Thanks Edwin.
I was interested to see point 9 in the Consumer info – “clinicians with immature e-health systems can download screen pictures of your PCEHR” – I was not aware of any current EHR/e-health system that prevents the user from doing a screengrab of what is shown – what are they referring to when they talk about “immature” systems?
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Could it be the browser version? (Not integrated with clinical software)
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Reblogged this on Dr Thinus' musings.
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AFAIK we can still do screengrabs of the browser as well – when using a windows OS you can screengrab pretty much anything – what would they therefore classify as “mature” ?
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No need for a screen grab these days, Just use your camera in your smartphone.
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