POLICY NEWS – NOVEMBER 2018

This month in Policy News we look to the areas where future policy will be needed, particularly around….you guessed it! artificial intelligence and all things robotic!

Rail as we might against change it’s always more effective with good policy

Read on!

New Chair of the Medical Board of Australia announced

Following Joanna Flynn’s departure at the end of her tenure, a new Chair has been announced.

Emeritus Professor Anne Tonkin is a physician and clinical pharmacologist. She was also a previous chair of the SA Medical Board.

SA is becoming quite the place to be!

Changes to National Register

Links to public tribunal decisions when serious allegations have been proven will be published on the national register of practitioners in the interests of transparency for the public. This commenced for medical practitioners early in 2018 and will now be extended to all registered health practitioners.

By early 2019, all back decisions will be added with new decisions to be added as they occur.

Read about it on the AHPRA website:

https://www.ahpra.gov.au/News/2018-10-29-media-release-National-register.aspx

Mandatory reporting laws

Much has been said and written about this issue, particularly whether practitioners treating other practitioners should be exempt from mandatory reporting requirements.

Apparently health ministers have listened and proposed amendments to the legislation will provide a balance between risk to the public and enabling practitioners to seek treatment without their treating practitioners necessarily having to make a mandatory notification.

The Tranche 1A amendments will be introduced into the Queensland parliament (where the National Law was originally legislated, with other jurisdictions then having mirror legislation). The National Law Regulation 2018 will apply to all jurisdictions, including WA, making it a truly National law.

Read the COAG communiqué here:

http://www.coaghealthcouncil.gov.au/Announcements/Meeting-Communiques1

Snakes and Ladders – the journey to primary care integration

This report by Consumers Health Forum, UQ and The George Institute identifies 5 key themes and 10 priorities for the implementation and transformation required to have genuinely integrated primary care.

The 5 themes and 10 priorities are:

• Clear the way by removing funding barriers – including revising Health Care Homes and developing regional budgets to be administered by PHNs and LHNs and prioritizing prevention and integrated primary care
• Create regional solutions – focusing on funding arrangements of the PHNs and LHNs
• Test and showcase innovation – calling for an approach to chronic disease management similar to the NDIS and having a Consumer Enablement Portal
• Link up the system – recognizing the importance of team based care, primary health care information and funding links between contracts and achievement of standards on consumer engagement and experience. General Practice Liaison Officers get a mention here
• Lead into the future – establishing a National Centre for Health Care Innovation.

It comes with a five-year plan and an impressive list of participants in the roundtable discussion that helped inform the report.

Read the report here:

http://apo.org.au/node/192756

“Australian health system set to fail”

That’s the verdict of KPMG in a report just released about connecting people with progress.

For progress in relation to health care, think “a future where Australians have equal access to appropriate health and human services when and where they require the service, regardless of their geography and other demographic characteristics.”.

Sound familiar?

They identify 4 tactics to move healthcare into the future:

• Availability on demand: think drones to deliver products, telehealth
• Personalised healthcare: think consumer focused hospitals and reduced hospital stays
• Connected healthcare: thing wearable devices, digestible and implantable sensors
• Effective healthcare: think individualized protocols, data analytics as applied to medical records, and of course AI.

And yes! Many of these things are already happening!

It’s a fascinating report that takes a whole-of-society perspective.

View the whole report here:

https://ceda.com.au/Research-and-policy/All-CEDA-research/Research-catalogue/Connecting-people-with-progress-securing-future-economic-development

The internet of medical things (IoMT)

You’ve heard of “the internet of things?” (IOT) – an information system infrastructure for implementing smart, connected objects Framling K, 2003).

Well this report is about the internet of medical things (IoMT).

What is the IoMT? A connected infrastructure of health systems and services, according to Deloitte.

This report claims that the global market for wearable devices and remote patient monitoring systems is expected to reach US$612 billion in 2022.

What does this market consist of? Check out this list:

• Wearables – These devices come with bio-sensing capabilities that track patient information and vitals
• Stretchable electronics – These devices will be bendable as they will be made of silicone and will contour themselves to different parts of a patient’s body and be worn in different places.
• Augmented Reality (AR) anatomy – This technology enables the superimposing of the digital world onto an image of the real world. It will be useful in explaining medical conditions to patients, the planning of medical procedures with precision, etc.
• Virtual Reality (VR), robotics and brain machine interfaces (BMI) –For example, a paralysed person can use it to learn how to walk again, depending on their situation.
• Digital pills – Sensors are embedded in pills, which get activated by the juices of the digestive system.
• A pill that replaces needles – It’s designed to be able to deliver large molecules directly into the intestines without the need for needles.
• 3D printing – think prosthetics
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) –includes machine learning, deep learning, facial detection, natural language voice-recognition, smart robots, chatbots, image recognition.
• Robots – Medical robots are expected to be used in surgery, Origami robots that live in pills can be used to remove dangerous materials consumed, such as button batteries. Millibots, which are tiny robots, use kinetic energy and are guided by a doctor using MRI to perform surgery. Humanoid robots are more human-like and have advanced robotic capabilities to perform intricate tasks that human hands can achieve.
• Brain-machine interfaces – These are mind-controlled medical devices that control attached prosthetics for people who have lost limbs.

The future is that we could all become cyborgs (hopefully not all like Arnie! Or that other nasty silvery guy…)

Read about it here:

https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/life-sciences-and-healthcare/articles/medtech-internet-of-medical-things.html