eHealth

eHealth is the rapidly expanding field of health information and communication technology that supports health systems and services. It should be viewed as the essential infrastructure underpinning information exchange between all participants in the Australia and New Zealand health care systems, and a key enabler and driver of improved health outcomes for all.

There is an increasing demand for clinical information to be exchanged between individual healthcare practitioners, healthcare provider organisations and health departments. Existing models of health care delivery will not be sustainable in future decades. eHealth has the capacity to impact on all levels of healthcare and encompasses numerous areas, listed below. As such, it is vital that the viewpoints of specialists are included in the development of the various systems that come under eHealth.

Every day, Fellows and Trainees of the College's Divisions, Faculties and Chapters are exposed to, and increasingly actively engaged in, different areas of eHealth. The eHealth Expert Advisory Group is the College's peak eHealth group.

The main areas of eHealth can be summarised as:

• Electronic health records and unique identifiers
• Electronic prescribing
• Telemedicine - remote consultations
• Broadband connectivity
• Clinical decision support
• Communications - secure messaging
• Electronic clinical handover
• Electronic discharge summaries
• PDAs, smart phones and gadgets

Linked to each listed are a variety of issues, such as access, privacy, safety and quality.

Why eHealth?

Information and communication technologies have a significant role to play in creating opportunities for new models of care delivery. Information management is fundamental to healthcare delivery and electronic applications can improve the quality, safety and effectiveness of clinical decisions.

Factors that include an aging population, increases in chronic and complex diseases and a global shortage of health professionals place an increased pressure on current health systems in Australia and New Zealand.

To enable the goals of ensuring better decision making, reducing medical errors, improving quality of care and improving the validity of information available, Individual Electronic Health Records (IEHRs) will function to consolidate a summary of an individual's medical information in one place - at the point of care.

National eHealth Strategy

Quality and safety are the key drivers behind the National eHealth Strategy and its release in 2008 outlined four major strategic streams of activity that are: foundations, eHealth solutions, change and adoption and governance.

NeHTA

The National eHealth Transition Authority (NeHTA) has been established by the Australian State and Territory governments to develop better ways of electronically collecting and securely exchanging health information.

NeHTA have a number of reference groups comprising a range of stakeholders, including clinician representatives that in some cases are Fellows of our College. For further details, visit their website here.

Further information on eHealth & Physicians:

Position Statements

• Electronic Prescribing - Coming soon
• The Individual Electronic Health Record  - Coming soon

Submissions

• Healthcare Identifiers and Privacy Legislation - Submission to the Australian Health Ministers' Conference - Aug 2009 (PDF 99KB)

Articles

• iPhones - Jan 2009 (PDF 30KB)
• Electronic Health Records in New Zealand - Jan 2009 (PDF 21KB)
• Electronic Health Records in Australia - the implications for clinicians - Dec 2008 (PDF 38KB)

Surveys

• A study to determine access and use of computers and electronic applications by physicians - 2007 (PDF  304KB)

Links

• National eHealth Strategy
• National Hospital & eHealth Reform Commission
• The New Zealand Health Information Service

Please contact the Policy and Advocacy Unit for further information: policy@racp.edu.au