The official solution is a bit late for the vax party

This week, we finally figured out the exact situation of the vaccine reservation system of the New South Wales Department of Health. We found through the New South Wales tender website that as early as May, we signed a complete vaccine management system contract with ServiceNow Australia. Since then, a new system has been gradually introduced to replace the hastily combined appointment system that our correspondents have been difficult to use for several weeks. We wrote about this system as early as July.

The public’s difficulties in determining vaccine eligibility based on actual vaccine supply and appointments subsequently led to multiple attempts by technical experts keen to help simplify the process, including hard-working Sydney geospatial engineer Ken Tsang adding vaccine clinic information and availability to His COVID-19 Near Me site.

It is now clear that the people behind the Vaccine Clinic Finder of HealthDirect, the official Australian website used to find vaccine clinics, have always been aware of data quality issues and have been working hard to find solutions. On Monday, HealthDirect issued a funding proposal to the online reservation system department to launch an API designed to improve data quality and open reservation availability in real time.

The work has obviously been going on behind the scenes for some time-while HealthDirect has also taken some talents from the Australian Digital Health Agency to assist in this work-but we return to the argument we made earlier: of course whether this should be foreseen earlier To the need for large-scale nationwide vaccine promotion?

Regrettably, none of the websites established to fill the gaps are operated for profit and are excluded from any funds. In fact, they are degraded because they generate high traffic load on the commercial reservation system because they are repeatedly scanned. Available appointments. New Zealand at least put this competition aside by working with aggregators as part of a concerted national effort to get everyone vaccinated as quickly and effectively as possible. We only hope that Australia can do the same.

Although some people think it is a good thing that the industry is supported to improve interoperability standards, it is a bit too late for the Delta outbreak. By the time the existing primary care vaccination clinics are all set up for real-time data feed-industry quotes will end in December-the 80% vaccination threshold will be reached, and next year will only enhance the benefits of vaccination appointments. We don’t know whether the money is worth it.

In other news, our most popular story so far this week is about the Royal Children’s Hospital of Melbourne and its impressive results since the introduction of electronic medical records in 2016. CMIO Mike introduced the early results of the impact on mortality in the southern part of HIC in 2019-this is the second most read story on Pulse+IT this year-these results are now in a study in the Journal of Pediatrics and Child Health Got a copy.

RCH rightly boasts that its EMR implementation is exemplary, and these results prove this. Next week, we will have more stories about how EMR is getting better at this job, including Meditech EMR upgraded to Sydney Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, and how Cerner’s previously problematic SA pathology EPLIS system is now transforming corners.

This brings us to this week’s poll question. Last week, we asked if you think there is a need for a standards-based, nationally recognized vaccine passport system. The vast majority of people agree: 95% of people say yes, 5% of people say no.

We also asked an optional question about what the vaccine passport should be based on. The EU digital COVID certificate is the main competitor, although some people like the IATA system. “Whatever Graham Griff says” is our personal favorite.

This week, we asked:

Is our health department flexible enough to adjust IT systems to respond to the pandemic?

Vote and comment here or leave your comment below.