Health care and health are being impacted by the innovative application of the concepts and technologies of the information age.
e-health is generally accepted as an umbrella term composed of 2 elements – health informatics (related to the collection, analysis and movement of health information and data to support health care), and telehealth (related to direct e.g. videoconferencing or indirect e.g. website delivery, of health information or health care to a recipient).
e-health records will allow us to access a summary of our important health information online, and share that information with the healthcare professionals involved with our care, meaning we will no longer have to remember the detail of every medication, immunisation or treatment we have received. The Commonwealth Dept of Health e-health programme is the electronic management of health information to deliver safer, more efficient, better quality healthcare.
Standards Australia’s Technical Committee IT-014 Health Informatics has successfully concluded its two year work programme with a total of 41 publications between 2012 and 2014. The publications include Australian Standards, implementation guides and technical specifications for a range of e-health topics such as telehealth, healthcare concepts, Personally Controlled Electronic Health Records, security, messaging, and clinical decision support.
Standards Australia and the Commonwealth Department of Health have worked diligently to ensure that the public are able to have free access to IT-014 Health Informatics committee publications. These documents are available currently through this link:
http://www.e-health.standards.
CFA had a representative on the Technical Committee IT-014 Health Informatics which developed these publications.
CFA provides volunteer representatives on Standards Australia Technical Committees as part of the CFA Standards Project; if you are interested in finding out more about the Project and/or becoming a volunteer CFA Standards Representative please contact the Standards Coordinatorstandards@consumeraction.org.