Primary care was back in the news this week, highlighted by yesterday's announcement that Fred IT had won the tender to build Victoria's new real-time prescription monitoring system, with ReferralNet and Argus scoring a few runs on secure messaging, a new survey out looking at the digital general practice, and a whole gang of diagnostic imaging software vendors signing up for the My Health Record.

The survey, carried out by online booking, recall and reminder service HotDoc, had a number of very interesting nuggets – not the least of which is that yes, sometimes your patients will pay to not have to come in to see you – but also the finding that most people use online booking systems not for their own convenience but so they can book their personal doctor more conveniently. A good proportion are also willing to follow their doctor when they change practices, which just reiterates what everyone has been banging on about for years now about how the relationship between doctor and patient is a special one.