LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Australia's healthcare IT systems in good shape

I am writing about an article written by Paul Montgomery called "Australia's ailing e-health policy" that was published in the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of Image & Data Manager.

I work in the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care and am involved with the National Health Information Management Advisory Council, the Electronic Health Records Taskforce, work on privacy and related matters, standards development, telehealth, supply chain management etc - and I was substantially responsible for the development of the document Health Online: A Health Information Action Plan for Australia.

I think Paul's article dealt rather unfairly with Australia's e-health policy. Dismissed in a couple of lines that suggest that it is belated, cumbersome and following an NZ tradition, it doesn't acknowledge the substantial progress that has been made in the last 18 months. The article also confuses the main areas of progress (that follow from the development of Health Online) with the publication of the NOIE document 'The Unstoppable Rise etc'.

I invite you to find out what we are doing in the Commonwealth Health Department. We are told that you are genuinely interested in this area and would welcome a chance to get some background for a more substantial article on progress with e-health policy in Australia.

Paul Fitzgerald

Department of Health and Aged Care

Editor's note: I will be following up on Australia's work in the health information management area in the next issue.