My Health Record is getting $301.8 million thrown at it as part of the 2021 Federal Budget.
This is part of the Morrison government’s $1.2 billion Digital Economy Strategy, which also includes upgrades to MyGov and the Regional Connectivity Program.
The government’s commentary on the budget injection reads largely as a love letter to the controversial platform.
“My Health Record is Australia’s best-connected clinical information system, providing health care providers with vital information for patients at the point of care,” the website reads.
It goes onto justify the existence of the system.
“The Australian Government is working to reduce the reliance on paper-based records and to digitise information from primary healthcare providers, medical specialists, pathology, diagnostic imaging and allied health services,” it reads.
“This will allow Australians to easily access more of their information through the enhanced My Health Record. This easy-to-use digital interface will provide an overview of all relevant aspects of a patient’s healthcare history and medical information to better support them and their care.”
The primary reason for the upgrades are related to COVID-19. It will apparently provide citizens with COVID19 test results as well as their vaccine status.
It will also allow people to “[receive] alert notifications about their COVID-19 vaccinations directly from the device of their choice.
In addition, the upgrades to My Health Record will allow people to connect their account information with their Residential Aged Care Facility to “[deliver] improvements in medication management and transitions of care between health care settings.”
Let’s also hope that some of this money will be used for security purposes. My Health Record has been exposed to two data breaches since 2019.
The platform came under fire back in 2018 due to privacy concerns as well as controversially being set up as an opt-out service.
The Australian Labor party called for an extension on the roll out due to these concerns but this was rejected in 2018, despite the platform’s director of privacy resigning at the time.