DAVID MORE. Has Health Minister Hunt Been A Bit Too Clever By Half On The #myHealthRecord?

Health

DAVID MORE. Has Health Minister Hunt Been A Bit Too Clever By Half On The #myHealthRecord?

Oct 29, 2019

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.