Internet GP data a muddle

TAXPAYERS have spent nearly $1.7 billion on an internet based My Health Record that doctors are refusing to use and which can’t be emailed or shared with digital health apps.

Every Australian will get a My Health Record in 2018 unless they opt out of the system but doctors are warning of major issues with its ease of use and fear patients don’t understand the privacy implications.

Five years after it was launched, five million Australians have opted to set up a My Health Record.

However, fewer than one in 12 of Australia’s 31,000 medical specialists are registered to use the My Health Record and they still rely on GPs faxing them referral letters and patient information.

For the records to be useful, GPs have to upload a summary of a patient’s health condition, but this has happened in fewer than one in four cases. The government has offered incentive payments to upload these summaries, but 1440 GP practices had to repay this cash because they failed to meet the criteria.

Dr Rob Hosking, the deputy chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners e-health committee, supports the concept of a digital record but he questions who uses it.

“None of the hospitals my patients attend have access to the My Health Record,” he says.

None of the specialists he sends his patients to use the record either and he has to use a separate private secure messaging service to communicate with specialists.

“It’s quicker to pick up the phone and call the pharmacists to find out what medicines the patient is on because the (My Health Record) user interface is difficult to use,” he said.