NEHTA unveils e-health strategic plan

The company set up by the Australian, State and Territory governments in 2005 to lead the transition to greater use of e-health in Australia, the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA), has released its Strategic Plan to 2012.

In a statement, NEHTA chief executive, Peter Fleming said the plan outlines how the agency intends to drive e-health development and includes the migration to an Individual Electronic Health Record (IEHR) service.

“NEHTA has considered its future work program based on the National Strategy and other important work completed this year including the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission recommendations,” he said in the statement.

“As a result we have produced our Strategic Plan to clearly show our stakeholders across the health sector the directions we are taking to drive the take-up and adoption of e-health.

“We are pleased to receive comments on the Strategy which is publicly available.” NEHTA’s strategic plan is centred on four streams of activity. The first, foundations, is focused on developing Healthcare Identifiers, secure messaging and authentication, and a clinical terminology and information service.

The second stream is e-health solutions, which will “coordinate the progression of the priority e-health solutions and processes” with priorities being “referrals and discharge, pathology and diagnostic imaging and medications management”.

The change and adoption stream will aim to accelerate the adoption and awareness of e-health iniatives, while the last stream focuses on NEHTA attempting to leading the way in the sector.

The full report (46 pages) can be accessed here.

Earlier this year, health professionals criticised Australian governments for a lacklustre investment in e-health claiming the nation has slipped behind many countries in the field because of weak funding and unresponsive departments.

Experts said a $218 million national fund allocation to NEHTA over three years to June 2012 should be increased to bolster what they say is an ailing e-health industry.

To contact the journalist on this story email Computerworld or follow @computerworldau on Twitter and let us know.

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