Introduction
A Message from the CEO Leading Digital Health Mark Nevin, CEO
With continued advancements in clinical care, data storage, sharing and interoperability there remain major challenges. I’ve previously lauded how advanced and sophisticated our two specialties are relative to most industries. Notwithstanding this, timely sharing of information across clinical boundaries remains haphazard and frustrating for most specialists, referrers and others involved in multi-disciplinary care. As this is my last Inside News article as CEO, I hope you will indulge me in focusing on a particular passion. Digital health has been an area of interest of mine since the early years of my career in eye care, helping to design and pilot electronic healthcare records for use in domiciliary optometry. My passion for the area grew while working in policy and strategy in the UK and in Brussels, particularly once I comprehended the value of the data itself and stewardship of the information flow. This has continued in my time at the College and last year, my policy and standards work in this area was recognised with a Fellowship from the Australasian Institute of Digital Health. Both clinical radiology and radiation oncology went digital some decades ago. The radiology sector developed the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard. The College was instrumental in bringing it to our two countries via Integrating the Health Enterprise (IHE), and we integrated DICOM to our practice standards
and training curriculum. DICOM has expanded considerably since then to include domains for other clinical fields including radiation oncology.
solution to resolve these. Regrettably, at the time, this was not seen as a priority for governments and no funding was made available.
The College’s policy work in digital health commenced about a decade ago. Our first major policy publication was a joint “roadmap” paper with the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association (ADIA) and Medical Software Industry Alliance.
The following years saw enduring competing priorities: the Australian government focused on My Health Record; while the radiology sector sought to advance electronic referral and information sharing relating to diagnostic images. The College advocated strongly for our digital health priorities for radiology via the Medicare Benefits Schedule Review and the government’s work to develop interoperable digital health.
“The College’s policy work in digital health commenced about a decade ago. Our first major policy publication was a joint “roadmap” paper with the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association (ADIA) and Medical Software Industry Alliance.” The paper, titled Securing Quality Outcomes: Systemised Access to Diagnostic Images articulated the logistical problems for radiologists and referrers in accessing prior images, and associated challenges for clinical decision-making. It proposed a national
The College regularly pointed out the lack of a critical foundational piece: standardised terminology, where we notably lagged the pathology sector. In order to corral alignment between key decision-makers in government, notably the Department of Health and Australian Digital Health Agency, and the radiology sector, the College produced a white paper in 2020 outlining the College’s vision for a fully electronic flow of medical communications between referrers and radiologists, including eReferral, imaging guidelines and access to historic images. This would also involve integration with My Health Record, and in time facilitate the adoption of artificial intelligence. The white paper made abundantly clear that this would not progress without standardised terminology for radiology tests and procedures. continued over... Volume 17 No 4 | September 2021
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