Correction: The Department of Health and Aged Care has clarified that it is client support plans, not care plans, that will be shared from My Aged Care to My Health Record. “Client Support Plans record and identify the client’s areas of concern regarding care, goals to address these concerns, and any recommendations for services or actions to achieve the identified goals,” a DoHAC spokesperson said. This blog has been edited to reflect this.

Two big announcements that have the potential to fundamentally reshape digital in aged care in Australia were in the spotlight this week, including the surprise announcement that client support plans held in the My Aged Care system will be able to be uploaded to the My Health Record later this year.

There was also the very welcome release of guidance on minimum standards for aged care clinical software, including clinical information systems and electronic medication management systems, that should be adopted in order to support interoperability between the aged care system and other care providers, especially GPs, allied health and pharmacists.

We didn’t expect this to hear about this when we sat in on the Department of Health and Aged Care’s regularly excellent Tech Talk webinar this week. We knew that the long-term plan was to integrate the My Aged Care with My Health Record, but new functionality that will be out in October will allow the client support plans will be made available to healthcare providers through My Health Record.

This is also available through the My Aged Care hospital portal, which was set up some time ago to allow hospital discharge teams to get access to their patients My Aged Care care plans to ensure they can be discharged to home or back to residential aged care safely.

While we’re not too sure how many people actually access the My Aged Care hospital portal and direct access to My Aged Care might improve uptake, and, more importantly, improve discharge planning. This is a great idea, and we congratulate the department for this move.

DoHAC was also involved with the Australian Digital Health Agency in developing the new minimum software requirements for aged care clinical information systems and electronic medication management software, which was released this week after some years of development.

The standards comprise a list of technical standards that is hoped to be incorporated into software development roadmaps over the next couple of years. Reading through the documentation, it is quite obvious that a huge amount of work has been done on the standards not just by DoHAC and ADHA but the Medical Software Industry Association and most notably by the former Aged Care Industry IT Council and its venerable leaders George Margelis and Anne Livingstone.

It’s very welcome development, and we believe that these minimum standards will be the driving force in interoperability between the aged care system, particularly residential aged care, GPs and pharmacists in particular, something that we’ve all been crying out for for many years.

However, not to put a downer on what is the dawn of a new age, reading through the documentation and the frequently asked questions, it is obvious that the government is not going to pony up much more than has already been spent, particularly to the aged care providers that have been lobbying for public funding to buy standards-based technology.

The government seems to be insistent that it’s not going to mandate these standards, for the time being at least. Rather a lot of money has already been spent on things like the PHN-managed virtual care grants, which in a lot of cases have been used to buy nice pieces of equipment for aged care facilities that are then parked in a closet because everyone has forgotten how to use them.

It was patently obvious that aged care providers were crossing their fingers and holding out a lot of hope that some of the $1.4 billion in ICT spending for aged care announced in this year’s budget would go to the providers to buy new technology, but most of it is going into government systems and the providers have been left with empty bowls.

The software vendors have been funded by ADHA to upgrade their systems to become compliant, particularly with the My Health Record and the very excellent electronic National Residential Medications Chart, but it doesn’t look as if the providers will be getting any money to actually purchase software.

That may be one reason why the minimum standards are not on the drawing board to be mandated. DoHAC is basically saying that providers will adopt standards-based software as their vendors are already building the standards into their technology.

Also in the news this week has been some fabulous reporting from our New Zealand-based reporter Reesh Lyon about more dramas with the savage budget cuts for data and digital handed down earlier this year. Before the cuts, some of this money was diverted to fix some of the creaky old payroll systems left over from the DHB days.

It’s understood that there are 26 different instances of payroll systems currently being used that need stabilisation or a big upgrade. One of the main points of disbanding the DHBs and going to a single, national health service was to do away with things like this, of different silos and different technologies that don’t speak to each other, but some people are still holding out for the DHB days.

There was also more news on GP PMS market leader Medtech and its big fight with rival Valentia Technologies that is currently playing out in court. Medtech is suing Valentia, which makes the indici PMS that once threatened to take Medtech’s market share and which is also used for a few regional shared electronic health record (SEHR) programs run by the Wellington and Hamilton region PHOs. Medtech is now claiming this technology is a threat to patient privacy and safety and has written to all of the practice managers using Medtech.

This will continue to play out in court so we won’t say too much, but keep an eye on it. It may have ramifications for other shared care record programs and health data sharing in general in New Zealand.

That brings us to our poll question for the week:

Will the aged care industry adopt standards-based technology with little or no financial incentive?

Vote here, or leave your answers below.

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