Minister Plibersek chose the Health-e-Nation Conference to make her first address to an ehealth focused audience. She announced GPs will be able to claim MBS payments for creating and adding patient details to the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR), and cautioned against expecting miraculous overnight changes to the nation’s ehealth system come July 1, 2012.  

“This is a big and exciting project, but I’m determined not to rush it. This isn’t a matter of ‘flicking a switch’ on 1 July and away you go,” she said. “The initial step we’ll take on 1 July has always been about two key things: firstly, delivering the core national ehealth system – the building blocks; and secondly, allowing the first patients to register – and both are on track.” 

Also speaking at the Health-e-Nation Conference, Jane Halton PSM (Hons), Secretary of the Department of Health and Ageing told the 300-strong audience the job of NEHTA was to build standards and connectivity for the new national ehealth records system to work for everyone. Bureaucracy, and a monolithic system, simply wouldn’t work, she said, comparing such an approach to Australia’s early rail system where different gauges meant inefficiently loading and unloading freight at each state border. 

Writing online Dr George Margelis from Care Innovations said, “I walked out of the [Health-e-Nation] event with a new level of enthusiasm and belief that we really are doing the right thing, and optimism that Australia may well take the world leading position in ehealth and healthcare it so rightly deserved.”

AusHealth IT blogger and critic of the government’s ehealth approach, Dr David More, said, “We will look back on [the Health-e-Nation] speech from the Federal Health Minister as a watershed.” 

“Several clear messages resonated through all three days of this year’s Health-e-Nation Conference,” said Sally Glass, managing director of CHIK Services, organiser and founder of the annual event. “The strongest being that July 1, the kickoff for the national ehealth records system, is just the beginning of the ehealth journey for Australia, rather than the end point.”

In addition to Minister Plibersek and Ms Halton, the Health-e-Nation program drew on the collective knowledge and passion of various eminent international and local ehealth advocates and experts.