PCEHR ‘opt-out’ change
May 22, 2014
THE Royle review of the
Personally Controlled Electronic
Health Record (PCEHR) has
generated 38 recommendations
including a friendlier name change
and an ‘opt-out’ approach.
Minister for Health Peter Dutton
said the report found strong
support for continuing to develop a
consistent and effective electronic
health record.
As well as the more user friendly
name of My Health Record (MyHR)
and the opt-out system, to take
effect from a target date of 01 Jan,
other recommendations revolved
around the limited amount of
clinically usable information in
the PCEHR, a restructure of the
governance arrangements, such as
dissolving the National Electronic
Health Transition Authority and
replacing it with the Australian
Commission for Electronic Health
(ACeH) which would include
a pharmacist member, and
enhancement of usability.
Other recommendations included
the expansion of the Australian
Medications Terminology data set
to include a set of over the counter
medicines and including this in the
National Prescribing and Dispensing
Repository (NPDR).
The report said the NPDR only
contained 49,282 documents so
far but once widely adopted would
allow pharmacists in particular to
track compliance and interactions
with OTC medication.
“It does not readily or rapidly
allow clinicians to track a current
medications list.”
The report said the issue of
one of the subsidies available to
pharmacists being reliant upon
whether the first script was
dispensed electronically needed to
be reviewed to increase the rate of
adoption.
The 2014-15 Budget provided
$140.6m to support the operation
of eHealth and the PCEHR system
for 12 months.
Dutton said the government
would consider the
recommendations over the coming
months.
The Consumers Health Forum
(CHF) said the new plan would
inject fresh life into the project.
Ceo Adam Stankevicius said the
opt-out provision would overcome
the problem of the slow build in
momentum of the opt-in system.
To read the report, CLICK HERE.
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