Since the Government began rolling out My Health Record, it has claimed that grey nomads travelling across the country would be among the biggest ‘winners’ from the online medical records system. However, many of those who those having signed up say the reality on the ground hasn’t lived up to the hype. Here, the Digital Health Agency responds to the criticism.
‘Digital information is the bedrock of high quality healthcare. The benefits for patients are significant and compelling: hospital admissions avoided, fewer adverse drug events, reduced duplication of tests, better coordination of care for people with chronic and complex conditions, and better informed treatment decisions.
Digital health is already helping save and improve lives. Connecting the many healthcare organisations to the My Health Record and supporting the hundreds of thousands of healthcare providers to learn how to use the system will not happen overnight. Tremendous progress has been made since the system was first launched five years ago.
Over 10,000 healthcare organisations are connected, including a majority of GPs and high proportions of public hospitals in some states (such as Qld and NSW), and across private hospital groups. Over 13.3 million prescription and dispense records have been uploaded. Also, over 3.1 million clinical documents have been uploaded to the system.
But there is still more to do. The Government announced in May 2017 that a My Health Record will be created for all Australians by the end of 2018, unless they choose not to have one. This announcement is supported by an accelerated campaign to support healthcare providers across all health sectors, states, and territories to use the My Health Record.
Consumers who register for a My Health Record will already have important medical records available for them to view; including a history of their Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) items.
For example, people with a My Health Record will have information on visits to the doctor, medicines subsidised through Medicare, and tests subsidised through Medicare which can be useful when visiting a non-regular healthcare provider.
My Health Record can also include data from:
* the Australian Immunisation Record (operated by Medicare)
* the Organ Donor Register
* discharge summaries from connected hospitals
* shared health summaries from GPs
* a range of other medical documents.
Several apps are available for download from app stores that enable consumers to display their My Health Record data on their mobile phones.’
