Today on Health in 2 Point 00, we have another takeover edition! On Episode 92, Jess talks to Louise Schaper, CEO of the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) at HIC 2019. Louise’s key takeaway from the conference is that health tech in Australia is focused on humanity and improving outcomes for all people. Jess also asks Louise about the Australian Digital Health Agency’s MyHealthRecord, an online summary of individuals’ health information. It’s got a great participation rate with 90% of Australians opted in, but it’s not being utilized as much as it could be. Finally, Louise debunks some of the chatter around HealthEngine’s data scandal in which they were caught sharing health data with law firms. The thing is, the press has sold it as if they have full access to your medical data and has sold that, but that’s not the case.
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It’s super disingenuous to suggest that the press was ‘a bit of a beat up’. It’s so far from a beat up, it’s honest, investigative journalism highlighting an outrageous breach of trust.
The press reported on several things last year, 1) That patient reviews of doctors were altered, 2) That HealthEngine had an arrangement with personal injury lawyers to provide a paid referral pipeline of people booking medical appointments.
Both of those allegations were owned up to by HealthEngine, so how is it a beat up? They actually did what they were accused of.
Following on from this, the ACCC launched an investigation which confirmed points 1 and 2 from above. They also uncovered more reviews that were simply hidden, rather than altered and that 135,o0o people had their details passed on to health insurers under conditions where their consent to such behaviour was not clear.
So is it the press doing a beat up? Is it the ACCC doing a beat up?
As a representative of Health Informatics in Australia you should be better informed on the consequences of these actions and properly represent that information. The breathy ‘debunking rumours’ is awful too. Multi million dollar fines aren’t sought by government bodies outside of serious wrongdoing.
Do yourself a favour and get better informed.