October got off to a flyer with the announcement that the delayed discussion on the secondary use of My Health Record data was kicking off again. This is one of the most controversial aspects of the national system, and an agreed framework needs to be sorted before the opt-out model can go ahead. An industry survey back in 2015 showed that 64 per cent of respondents believe that individuals need to provide direct consent to the researcher for their data to be used.

Also in October, we had a long chat to the Australian Digital Health Agency's (ADHA) executive general manager for government and industry collaboration and adoption Bettina McMahon about the agency's 2017-18 work program and how it aligned with the national digital health strategy. Ms McMahon explained the thinking around making secure messaging interoperability a priority and explained how the six test beds mentioned in the strategy would fit in. The test beds are two-year programs predominantly driven by the states and territories covering how to encourage emergency departments to use the My Health Record, how digital health can be used to improve residential aged and end-of-life care, and the Collaborative Network for Child Health Informatics, which was announced back in April.