Health Minister Hunt was probably hoping that loosing the recent election would allow him to escape having to work out what to do with the problem child of the MyHealthRecord. He and his party won and now he has to work out what to do next!
I don’t know about you but it seems to me that the political class have suddenly totally lost interest in the #myHealthRecord since the last federal election in May.
Most will be aware that it was only in the last few weeks before the election that the Coalition thought it had any chance of victory and because of that there was a feeling that the final fate of the #myHR would not be a problem that they needed to be address, after the total mess that was made of the opt-out process with sufficient public concern being raised that 2.5 million voters decided to opt-out, as the incoming health minister would inherit the problem!
To make sure the new minister was fully on the hook for solving the difficult problem Minister Hunt, knowing that the #myHR was not popular, kept talking up its virtues pre-election to ensure the apparent policy switch would be seen as a major backflip when the incoming Minister realised just how unloved and unused the system was, and decided to can it.
Well, guess what? The #myHR problem has rebounded back on Minister Hunt and it has to be said that his remarks on the #myHR have been sparse at best and totally absent at worst.
Mr Hunt now has a full 3 years to try and work out what to do with this Government ‘white elephant’ in the face of an imminent ANAO audit reporting on the myHealthRecord Program, and a clear need to an inevitably pretty expensive ‘replatforming’ exercise if it is to be continued with.
Mr Hunt’s decision making will surely also be hampered by the loss of senior ADHA staff recently – with the most recent being the Chief of Staff of the organisation. Informal feedback on the blog also suggests there is quite a high level of turnover lower down in the ranks and that there is a waning amount of technical skill remaining there.
The sudden absence of reporting of activity statistics makes a good deal more sense in this light.See here:
https://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2019/10/i-wonder-why-government-is-so-secretive.html
As I see it he can either press on with a failing project at considerable ongoing expense and risk or actually take a decision and wind the nonsense down.
I wonder what he will do. Doing nothing and staying quiet for 3 years really isn’t really an option!
David More is a retired clinician with a very long term interest in Digital Health and the saga of the #myhealthrecord.
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John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.
Comments
4 responses to “DAVID MORE. Has Health Minister Hunt Been A Bit Too Clever By Half On The #myHealthRecord?”
He may be stirred up by an Audit Office Report on the whole thing which is due in the next month!
Inactivity may cease being an option!
David.
Unpopular? If 2.5 million people opted out that means 22.5 million (10 x as many) stayed in.
Unloved and unused? Plainly, it’s used if records are being added.
As far as we know it is not being used. According to Senate Estimates last week some 280,000 people have accessed the system since the end of the opt-out period in may (1.15% of potential users) so 98.85% of population are getting on with their lives without it!
The Digital Health Agency refuses to release actual clinical usage stats so you know they must be pretty bad and they have released no stats of any sort since June. If they were good there would be a stream of congratulatory press releases you can be sure!
David.
The creature Hunt…. “doing nothing and staying quiet for 3 years”. mmmm. David, just thinking-back to his past failures and general ineptitude, this pretend-minister has all that liberal laziness to achieve this.