We here at Pulse+IT like to keep an eye on not just industry media coverage of health IT but mainstream media coverage too, and this week provided quite a few morsels. The Guardian ran one of its regular stories on the My Health Record last week and while we think it got it right in terms of balance – it reported those who were for, those who were against and those who were in between – nothing new was revealed, to be honest.

The MyHR/PCEHR was launched almost 10 years ago (not 12) and it has cost upwards of $2.6 billion (not less) but otherwise the main thrust of The Guardian’s story is on the money. The system simply isn’t being used, not that this is news to anyone. The RACGP’s in-house PR unit newsGP was touting a spike in use in January, due to people looking at their COVID vax record and PCR results, but the figures pretty much returned to normal after that. Yes, you can see your vax records and test results on a nice little dashboard in My Health Record, but you can also get them elsewhere. The big use case for patients simply isn’t being met by the system.