Federal HealthConnect Disconnecting

January 13, 2006: Proving at least in the USA, records management is being taken seriously, three agencies have combined to produce version 1.0 of federal records management protocols.

Just over one year from his appointment as he National Director, e-health Implementation, Doctor Brian Richards, is to move on. On February 1st, Richards - previously Chief Information Officer with the Health Insurance Commission, will take up the position of Principal Medical Advisor in the Health Services Improvement Division (HSID).

Richards redeployment from the HealthConnect element of the overall 'e-health' initiative looks like another bump on the road to implementing the online storage and retrieval of patient records - and a national strategy for data storage.

With a background in general practice as well as consulting on National Electronic Health Records Taskforce using his experience with the AMA's General Practice Computing Group, Richards seemed ideally placed to implement the various standards required for such an enormous document and records management challenge.

The Australian reports that the team that he used to head at HealthConnect will also be moving to the HSID but will not be working with their former boss. Yet another new branch of HSID is being created to accommodate them.

As IDM goes to press no replacement for Dr Richards' role as head of e-health implementation has been announced.

Will e-health ever get off the ground?Comment here.

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