Australian Government leadership required to make eHealth work for dentistry

The Australian Government needs to take a more proactive role to ensure the benefits of eHealth in Australia flow through to dentistry and allied health professions.

Dentistry's existing capabilities for eHealth

The Australian Dental Association Inc.'s (ADA) Dental Practice Survey (Survey) is conducted every three years across the ADA membership to understand operational trends within Australian dental practices. The ADA's membership accounts for the vast majority of dentists (90%) in Australia.

The 2010 Survey results (published in 2012) relating to eHealth indicate that the dental profession has made considerable investment in information technology infrastructure to use eHealth to benefit patients.

The Survey results also show that not only do Australian dentists 'put their money where their mouth is' by adopting eHealth technologies, they are also open to participate in further eHealth developments. The majority of Australian dentists support the use of electronic prescriptions, integration with MIMS and as a means to store records. Dentists understand the beneficial role for eHealth and therefore would welcome appropriate government leadership to facilitate greater eHealth adoption.

The Survey shows that dentists' attitudes are also reflected in their actions. Over 60% of dentists use electronic patient records and take and examine digital radiographs. Dentists from particular specialties also use computers for digital model formulation.

Over 86% of dentists use practice management software, which not only assists in appointment scheduling, accounting, education of staff and patients, but also serves a key role in storing and processing records.

The eHealth challenge for the Australian Government

In spite of dentists making their own inroads into eHealth, the Australian Government needs to do its part to work in partnership to ensure that industry and infrastructure providers are able to translate these developments into an actual health benefit for patients.

The ADA calls on the Australian Government to take greater action in the following eHealth areas. Failure to address these issues may result in non-participation of the profession in eHealth.

• The Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR)

  With the establishment of the PCEHR in mid-2012, there have been real concerns about the participation rate amongst general medical practitioners. While the ADA understands the Australian Government has chosen to adopt a structured rollout of the PCEHR, there needs to be better communication and engagement with consumers and health practitioner groups to facilitate greater participation. The ADA laments the Australian Government's minimal engagement with the dental profession to provide the education and tools to enable greater participation and take up. The ADA, representing 90% of the dental profession, must be consulted and the advice of the dental profession needs to be heeded to ensure effective implementation of eHealth initiatives for real health improvements.

  To this end, the Australian Government is requested to consider extending the eHealth Practice Incentives Program (ePIP) beyond medical practice to provide funding assistance for dentist participation in the PCEHR. If government is committed to the PCEHR System as an important part of eHealth for Australia, it should acknowledge that time and resources are required for dentists to ensure their practices are linked to the PCEHR System, and operate as planned.

  At this stage it should be noted that the ADA's Special Purpose Committee on eHealth has cautioned members about their involvement in the PCEHR System until the above issues are better addressed.

• Secure messaging

  The ADA welcomes announcements that some secure messaging service vendors will be working together to ensure interoperability between health practice software and the PCEHR System. That said, the ADA calls upon the Australian Government to direct the National E-Health Transition Authority to establish a dental professionals' panel or at the very least an allied health care providers' panel similar to the aged care software vendors/pharmacy panel. Australian Government leadership will ensure that the requirements of dental practitioners are communicated clearly to secure messaging service vendors so that subsequent software developments appropriately include these features to allow for the safe transfer of patient information, whether it be to the PCEHR System or to other fellow health practitioners.

• E-prescriptions (or e-medication management)

The ADA urges the Australian Government to expand the scope of e-prescriptions (or e-medication management) to also include dentists. Dentists, who can already prescribe, must be able to interface with electronically generated prescriptions issued from the practitioner's desktop to the dispensing pharmacy as needed.

• E-referrals

  The standardised electronic and secure exchange of significant patient information from one treating healthcare provider to another should not be restricted to the realm of general medical practitioners and medicine but should also involve any health practitioner to refer to dentists.

• E-diagnosis

  Similarly, if the Australian Government intends to develop a national approach to pathology and radiology services to ensure greater continuity of care, the involvement of dentists is essential.