- by:Sue Dunlevy National Health Correspondent
- From: News Limited Network
- September 19, 201312:00AM
AUSTRALIA'S billion-dollar e-health system is in danger of becoming an expensive white elephant with doctors refusing to use it.
A key clinical adviser to the government who quit in frustration last month has described the system as "shambolic".
And the medical software industry says the body running the system, the National E-Health Transition Authority, lacks the skills to do the job and warns patient safety could be at risk.
Dr Mukesh Haikerwal who resigned in frustration from work on the e-health record says he's uploaded 150 patient records on to the system but "no-one can read it".
Patients who want a hospital or specialist to see their e-health record have to take their own ipad to the consultation to show the record because hospitals and specialists don't have the software to read it.
Fifteen months after e-health was launched - 888,825 Australians have signed up for an e-health record but by last month doctors had loaded only 5427 health summaries on to the system.
Only hospitals in the ACT and South Australia can currently access the record, although more are scheduled to come on board next month.
Some of the medication records loaded on to the record by the government are wrong and Dr Haikerwal says this could have grave consequences for patients who could be misdiagnosed.
The AMA says doctors or hospitals trying to use the records have less than a 0.5 per cent chance of finding anything clinically relevant.
Last month, four of the clinicians advising the government quit in frustration.
The mounting problems with the system come as it emerged that the cost of Britain's failed e-health system has reached 10 billion pounds.
However, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it was wrong to compare Australia's e-health record with Britain's which managed the entire stay for every patient seen or admitted to hospital all the way to their billing system.
Health Minister Peter Dutton who was sworn in on Wednesday has pledged to undertake a "comprehensive assessment" of Australia's e-health record.
Doctors are demanding the new government pay them to spend the time writing and uploading patient health summaries on to the new system and want the system simplified.
"If you are running a business time is money and you do need to recognise, to value the work of the health professionals setting up these records," Australian Medical Association vice president Professor Geoffrey Dobb said.
The control of the record must also be taken away from patients and handed back to doctors so they had confidence it was complete and comprehensive, Professor Dobb said.
"I think it is much better to have health records that are controlled by health professionals but with the capacity of consumers to access it and correct it if the information is incorrect.''
The 120 member Medical Industry Software Industry Association has told the new government the body running the e-health record "lacks the governance, knowledge and skills" to do the job.
It welcomes the government's pledge to review the record and says it is worried the new system is "immature" and this could impact on patient safety.
The e-health record is meant to bring medical records into the digital age and lists a patients medications and allergies, include a health summary written by a doctor and will in the future include X-ray results, pathology results, hospital discharge summaries
