Bettina McMahon appointed Healthdirect Australia CEO Written by Kate McDonald on
26 February 2021.
Former Australian Digital Health Agency interim CEO Bettina McMahon has been named as the new CEO of health information and helpline operator Healthdirect Australia.
Ms McMahon was also chief operating officer and executive general manager for industry and government at ADHA, and also held senior positions at its predecessor, the National e-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA).
Ms McMahon said Healthdirect Australia was a trusted digital health organisation and had been selected by the federal government to support the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out. Healthdirect is working with online appointment booking services to use the National Health Services Directory for the community phases of the vaccine roll-out.
DoH booking a whole lot of trouble Written by Kate McDonald on
05 February 2021.
By far the biggest story of the week has been the confusion that has surrounded the roll-out of the Department of Health’s alleged National Booking Solution to support the Covid-19 vaccination program in primary care. Such has been the confusion that some software vendors who sat in on a departmental call with their trade association on Tuesday came away completely shocked that the department did not mean to do what they all feared it would.
Rumour has swirled in the industry over the design of the solution, with many hearing that Accenture had been awarded a contract to build it. Accenture certainly is developing a data solution to trace the vaccines from receipt from the manufacturers to post-administration surveillance, but it appears it is not involved in the last mile of managing bookings and recalls for vaccination clinics.
States building vaccine management solutions, feds rolling out vaccine data solution Written by Kate McDonald on
04 February 2021.
State and territory health departments are building vaccine management solutions to handle the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine roll-out at their hospital hubs, as a national data solution for the supply chain being built by Accenture using Salesforce technology is set to go live imminently.
The federal Department of Health has also released new details of its national booking solution, which will be managed by HealthDirect based on the National Health Services Directory. New technology is also being developed by the Australian Digital Health Agency to assist clinicians to upload vaccination administration data to the Australian Immunisation Register.
Written by Kate McDonald on
02 February 2021.
The Australian government is not going to build a new national booking system to support the COVID-19 vaccination roll-out, instead relying on a mixture of existing online booking systems, Healthdirect’s National Health Services Directory and direct appointments with regular GPs and pharmacies.
Confusion has reigned over what the government has been calling a national booking solution, which it was promising to provide to general practices and pharmacies putting up their hands to take part in Phase 1b and 2 of the roll-out, which will see the AstraZeneca vaccine provided to priority groups and then the bulk of Australia’s adult population.