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E-health records misses online deadline

Australian Government misses key deadline for e-health record launch.
Written by Josh Taylor, Contributor

The Federal Government has launched its e-health record registration across Australia, but without the online registration it promised would be available as late as last week.

After two years in the planning, and $466.7 million of initial investment, the Federal Government quietly launched e-health record registration on Sunday evening, updating the eHealth.gov.au website to include information about how to register for an e-health record via phone, in a Medicare store or by printing out a form and mailing it into Medicare.

The Department of Health and Ageing has gone to ground on why it missed this key deadline for the consumer portal availability, despite telling ZDNet Australia last week that it would be up and running on 1 July.

When asked yesterday why the deadline was missed, the Department of Health and Ageing issued a statement stating that the e-health record system has "been delivered within budget and on time, with consumer registration available on 1 July".

"Registration opened yesterday for the Australian Government’s personally controlled electronic health (eHealth) record system, and the consumer portal will be available soon."

ZDNet Australia again asked why the deadline for online registration was not met, but a response had not been received at the time of writing.

On Saturday, the government announced that Accenture had secured a AU$47 million contract to operate the national infrastructure required for the PCEHR system, over the next two years. The department told ZDNet Australia that the launch of some of the elements of the PCEHR system has been delayed until August, "to enable further integration with software vendors, and to gain experience with the operation of the system gradually".

 

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