Author: Team

CHRONIC PAIN CONCERNS OVER PHI REFORMS

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]On September 11 the Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment Bill 2018 (the Bill) and two related Bills passed the Parliament.

The legislation implements a package of reforms around private health insurance, they include:

  • allowing for age-based premium discounts for hospital cover
  • allowing private health insurers to cover travel and accommodation costs for regional Australians as part of a hospital treatment
  • strengthening the powers of the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman
  • improving information provision for consumers
  • reforming the administration of second tier default benefits arrangements for hospitals
  • allowing insurers to terminate products and transfer affected policy-holders to new products
  • increasing maximum voluntary excess levels for products providing individuals an exemption from the Medicare levy surcharge and
  • removing the use of benefit limitation periods in private health insurance policies.

The Minister for Health, Greg Hunt MP, announced these reforms will make private health insurance simpler and more affordable.

“This new approach will take all existing private health insurance policies and categorise them into a four-tier system – Gold, Silver, Bronze and Basic,” Mr Hunt said.\

Following the passage of the legislation, pain groups have cautioned about potential unintended consequences of placing chronic pain in the highest category of cover.

Changes to the clinical category intended as part of the reforms could disproportionally impact patients with chronic pain and may have far reaching implications for millions of privately insured consumers who rely on existing coverage to access chronic pain management.

Advocacy group Painaustralia has urged the Commonwealth to reflect concerns its members have raised in the rules currently being drafted to give effect to the reforms in the legislation.

Painaustralia’s CEO, Carol Bennett said she welcomed the broad intention of the reforms to simplify private health insurance but cautioned against reforms that could create a situation that forced vulnerable people to drop their health insurance altogether.

“It’s important that [the legislated reforms] don’t negatively impact on people living with chronic pain who are some of the most vulnerable in our community and often unable to work,” Ms Bennett said.

These concerns were also noted by Senator Helen Polley and Senator Richard Di Natale during the second reading of the Bill, with both nothing the changes to clinical categories could adversely impact millions of consumers.

“These rules are not detailed in these bills. Those details are apparently going to come later in the form of regulation. The government claims its new gold, silver and bronze basic system will make private health insurance simpler and more affordable. It also claims that the changes will give consumers more clarity and certainty around their coverage,” Senator Polley said.

Chronic pain is the most common reason that people seek medical heal and one in five Australians live with chronic pain. Pain is also common to many chronic conditions and its impact spans the health, disability and ageing systems.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

MY HEALTH RECORD SYSTEM GETS ADDED PRIVACY PROTECTIONS

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]. The Bill will specifically:

  • remove the ability of the My Health Record System Operator to disclose health information in My Health Records to law enforcement agencies and government agencies without an order by a judicial officer or the healthcare recipient’s consent; and
  • require the System Operator to permanently delete health information stored in the National Repositories Service for a person if they have cancelled their registration with the My Health Record system – that is, they have cancelled their My Health Record.

These amendments are the result of concerns expressed by some healthcare and privacy advocates that the MHR Act permitted the release of information to law enforcement agencies and other government bodies.

On 31 July 2018 the Minister for Health announced his intention to strengthen the MHR Act to make clear that information will not be released without a court order, and that My Health Record information would be permanently deleted if someone cancels their My Health Record.

Former AMA President Prof. Kerryn Phelps reinforced the view that it would be worth a rethink in terms of the technology given how much it has changed.

“We need to think about how far technology has come and how much we’ve learnt about cybersecurity in the meantime. Then I think that we could possibly look at what data would necessarily need to be uploaded so that it could be used in a de-identified way for public health benefit. What I’m seeing in here is much less about the personal benefits of the My Health Record and a lot more about privatisation, monetisation and public health benefits. I think we would all want to see public health benefits—things like containment of epidemics and tracking flu epidemics—but I don’t think any of us wants to see the potential costs in terms of privacy,” Prof Phelps said.

Dr Linc Thurecht, Senior Research Director at the Australian Healthcare and Hospital Association while welcoming the proposed changes also identified the wider healthcare benefits of My Health Record.

“We see it as a vital part of the future health infrastructure to provide better coordinated care for individual patients and to improve safety and quality in their care. For that to happen—I’m not sure if ‘critical mass’ is quite the right phrase—the more people who are part of that, the greater the opportunity there is to reap those kinds of benefits,” Dr Thurecht said.

Ian Burgess, CEO of MTAA believes the development of My Health Record will provide a tremendous opportunity to improve data collection across the whole health system and across the patient journey.

“We believe the government should prioritise consideration of the inclusion of medical device data in the My Health Record,”

“This would allow for improved post-market surveillance. While registries can be invaluable they’re complex and expensive. Ultimately, My Health Record should be the main data infrastructure system, rather than maintaining separate data collection systems,” Mr Burgess said.

The ADHA said in a statement that it welcomes the discussion and will be contributing to the inquiry.

“The Australian Digital Health Agency has been engaged in an important national conversation around My Health Record – its benefits, privacy controls and security protections. As the system operator responsible for the expansion of this system, the ADHA welcomes this discussion,” the statement said.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

CHIEF SCIENTIST’S TERM EXTENDED

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The Australian Government has extended Dr Alan Finkel’s term as Australia’s Chief Scientist for a further two years to the end of 2020. Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, Karen Andrews announced the extension and congratulated Dr Finkel.

“I am delighted to announce Dr Finkel’s extension and look forward to working closely with him. Dr Finkel is a tireless advocate and highly respected champion for science, innovation and technology in Australian public life, with an extensive background and expertise as an entrepreneur, engineer, neuroscientist, educator and communicator,” Minister Andrews said.

“He has played a critical role and helped lead a number of major reviews into key policy areas.”

Dr Finkel commenced as Australia’s eighth Chief Scientist in January 2016. His close work with the Government was key to shaping the recent Budget decision to invest $1.9 billion in critical Australian research infrastructure capability, particularly his leadership on the 2016 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap.

Minister Andrews said Dr Finkel’s leadership had been invaluable in progressing key policy work, including through the Independent Review into the Future Security of the National Energy Market, a review into optimising STEM industry-school partnerships, and Innovation and Science Australia’s 2030 Strategic Plan.

“The Morrison Government is looking forward to working with Dr Finkel as he continues to provide robust and respected advice to Government across a range of issues and emerging trends in science and technology, including artificial intelligence, innovation metrics and precision medicine.

“As a Male Champion of Change for STEM, Dr Finkel also plays an important role in the Government’s agenda to increase the participation of women and girls in STEM education and careers,” she said.

Dr Finkel welcomed the opportunity to continue providing independent advice to Government and advancing priority missions.

“When I took up my post in 2016, I said that I had every confidence in the ambition and ability of Australians,” Dr Finkel said.

“I am delighted to recommit to my promise to back our potential today, and to build new potential through STEM education for tomorrow and into the future–including a science workforce that harnesses the capabilities of all Australians. We are committed to developing our research and innovation capacity, as a blue-chip investment with intergenerational returns.

“I look forward to working with Minister Andrews, her Parliamentary colleagues, and the many Australians who have inspired me with their visions of what this nation could be.”

Prior to becoming Chief Scientist, Dr Finkel was the Chancellor of Monash University and the President of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering.

For more information, including Dr Finkel’s biography and information about the role of the Chief Scientist, visit www.chiefscientist.gov.au

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MEDTECH KERRIN RENNIE AWARDS WELCOMING APPLICATIONS FOR 2018

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Kerrin Rennie was the Managing Director of ConvaTec, a member company of Medical Industry Association of Australia (now MTAA). She was an active and enthusiastic member of the Board and an advocate for greater involvement of women at senior levels in the industry. A trained nurse, Kerrin never lost sight of the central mission of our industry, that of caring for patients.  She was a passionate advocate for the contribution of medical technology in extending life and improving quality of life.  

In recognising the innovative and extraordinary contribution of medical technology in improving health outcomes for Australian patients, the Kerrin Rennie Award is a tribute to Kerrin’s life of service to this industry and to patients.  

Chief Executive Officer of the MTAA Ian Burgess indicated the product must demonstrate evidence of significant contribution to improving patient outcomes by enhancing quality of life, evidence of technical excellence and evidence of innovation.  

“Global advances in medical technology over the past 20 years have resulted in a 56% reduction in hospital stays, 25% decline in disability rates, 16% decline in annual mortality and increased life expectancy of approximately 3.2 years,” Mr Burgess said.  

Last year Medtronic’s Solitaire Platinum device was awarded the 11th Kerrin Rennie Award. The Solitaire Platinum restores the flow of blood to the brain by allowing the clot to be removed and withdrawing it from the body. 

In Australia, there are almost 1,000 cases of stroke each week. Approximately 22% of cases result in death, with two-thirds of survivors disabled. The financial costs of stroke in Australia are estimated at $5 billion per annum with productivity the largest cost component estimated at approximately $3 billion. 

In 2016 MediGroup EBI, Stracos 3D Rib Clip was the winner. The 3D Rib Clip, is a minimally invasive implant that is unique. Flexible to encourage ribs to remodel (heal long term) correctly, and rigid to ensure optimal short-term outcomes such as re-approximation and pain. Using the 3D Rib Clip has been shown to reduce hospital and ICU stay and is associated with reduced complications.  

Last year a record number of applications were received, a testament to the industry that is developing and providing the Australian healthcare system with innovative solutions for patients.  

“At the heart and soul of the medical devices industry are 17,700 dedicated professionals, committed to making a positive difference to patients’ lives through medical technology,” Mr Burgess said.  

“It’s inspiring to be part of the medical technology industry that every day is focused on improving the health and wellbeing of patients.”  

Applications for 2018 Kerrin Rennie Award are currently open, along with the Outstanding Achievement Award and the Women in MedTech Champion Award. 

PulseLine will report on those that make the finals. 

https://www.mtaaevents.org.au/medtech18/kerrin-rennie-award-2018/ [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

IMAGING SOLUTIONS: PHILIPS SIGNS STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Under the terms of the two agreements, Philips will provide delivery, upgrade, optimisation, replacement and maintenance services for all major medical imaging solutions.

The partnerships will support precision diagnosis and therapy and drive operational performance across nine hospital sites. This managed service delivery model for medical imaging technology is the first-of-its-kind for Philips in Australia and the ASEAN Pacific region.

Philips will structurally manage the Local Health Districts’ entire inventory of diagnostic and interventional medical imaging equipment and clinical informatics solutions, including those of other vendors, across various clinical areas including radiology, cardiology and nuclear medicine. It will also provide financing services.

Through the partnerships, Philips will help to deliver on the core objectives of each Local Health District: enhancing the patient experience, managing population health, and maintaining responsible and predictable budget management to deliver the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

“These long-term strategic agreements will allow us to innately support our partners’ objectives of providing outstanding, innovative and future-proofed healthcare to their communities, by making them better informed, more efficient and more sustainable,” said Caroline Clarke, CEO Philips ASEAN Pacific.

“This first-of-its-kind service delivery model for Philips in Australia highlights how we are transitioning to becoming an integrated solutions and services provider that teams up in a shared framework to accelerate change in a new era of value-driven care.”

As part of the collaboration, Philips will also support the two Local Health Districts with its integrated data analytics solution, PerformanceBridge Practice.

This service aggregates and connects data from across different imaging modalities and information systems and provides actionable insights into departmental operations to help drive continuous improvement.

Next to this, each Local Health District will be able to monitor and optimise radiation exposure to both patients and their caregivers with DoseWise Portal, a radiation dose management solution.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

WORLD-FIRST STUDY INTO COCHLEAR IMPLANTS AND IMPACT ON SPEECH

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]In the study, published today in the journal Ear & Hearing, the experts have found a correlation between a computer model and the speech intelligibility in implant recipients. This might mean that by improving the performance of the model, the performance of individuals with cochlear implants may benefit in ways that have never before been explored.

“Cochlear implants are remarkable devices that have changed lives over the past several decades,” said lead author, PhD candidate Greg Watkins from the University of Sydney’s School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering.

“However, despite this astonishing history, listening to and understanding another person’s speech when there is a lot of background noise is still much more difficult for people with cochlear implants than it is for people with normal hearing.”

Greg, who received a cochlear implant himself in February, explained that: “Computerised speech intelligibility models are powerful tools that allow us to evaluate how a hearing impairment may affect a cochlear implant recipient’s ability to understand speech in background noise.”

The researchers compared the accuracy of four different models of a recipient’s likelihood to understand speech. They discovered that a new model, known as the ‘output signal to noise ratio’ or OSNR was superior in predicting the improvements or decline in sentence recognition of actual cochlear implant recipients.

“The OSNR appears to have the capability to predict what will happen as a result of changing the parameters available to clinicians when tailoring the implant performance to the specific needs of a patient,” said Professor Gregg Suaning, a global leader in implantable bionics from the School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering and co-author of the study.

“The result might be that changes that were never considered as possible improvements may now be used to achieve a better outcome for recipients of cochlear implants.”

Brett Swanson, Principal Research Engineer at Cochlear Limited, highlighted another important aspect of the study.

“A cochlear implant stimulates the auditory nerve directly, so if you’re a researcher with normal hearing, you can’t listen to it yourself. Instead, we rely on dedicated volunteers with cochlear implants who spend hours in sound-proof rooms listening to sentences in noise and telling us what they hear. It is vital work, but mentally draining. OSNR has the potential to drastically reduce the amount of time that we need from our volunteers,” he said.

The next steps in this work include working with cochlear implant recipients to make changes in their implant based on the model predictions and demonstrating the outcome is indeed an improvement in speech recognition in noise.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

STRYKER NAMED AS ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST PLACES TO WORK ONCE AGAIN

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]For more than 30 years, Great Place to Work® has studied the world’s most notable workplace cultures, from small start-ups to some of the best-known multinationals, to uncover what makes them great and demonstrating that creating a great workplace can produce superior business performance.

Erin Cramlet, Senior Director, HR for Stryker South Pacific believes creating a great workplace isn’t rocket science, but comes down to people, culture and ensuring one positively fuels the other.

“We wouldn’t be the first company to cite people and culture as key ingredients to a great workplace, but it’s what you do with these important elements that makes all the difference,” said Cramlet.

“We purposefully look to attract people who care about others and will genuinely feel rewarded by the work we do. In doing so, we have developed a culture of driven, hardworking, passionate people who love working for a company that makes a real difference in this world.”

As their mission statement suggests, Stryker is driven to make healthcare better and the company looks for the same passion amongst employees and potential applicants. Stryker places a large emphasis on looking ‘beyond the resume’ and attracts candidates from a wide range of backgrounds to take on a successful career in medical technology.

“It is our belief that our success as a company starts with our strengths-based hiring philosophy. We choose to focus on understanding whether a potential candidate’s talents and strengths align with the role they are applying for, rather than whether or not they’ve had experience in that particular role before. This approach enables our employees to do what they do best, while also providing them with the opportunity to learn and grow their career, alongside a growing company,” continued Cramlet.

“This is an exciting, transformative and competitive time for companies,” said Zrinka Lovrencic, Managing Director of Great Place to Work Australia. “With a services sector heavy economy, employers now need to make a greater effort to improve their workplace cultures in order to retain employees. This competitive pressure benefits everyone, as all workplaces can increase their levels of employee engagement. The companies that have made the 2018 study have risen to this challenge and exemplify workplace culture excellence.”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

DIAGNOSTIC DEVICE CAN HELP PREVENT STROKES AND HEART ATTACKS

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Millions of people around the world die from heart attacks and strokes every year.

Predicting the formation of a blood clot is challenging because of the dynamic environment in which a clot forms. Blood platelets, which are a tenth of the size of a regular cell, are the major drivers of blood clot formation and they clump together within seconds when triggered.

ANU biomedical engineer Dr Steve Lee, from the ANU Research School of Engineering, and biochemist Associate Professor Elizabeth Gardiner, from the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR), are the research team leaders.

“Using the new diagnostic device that our team has developed, we can create and quantify clot formation in 3D view from a blood sample without any form of labelling such as fluorescence or radiotracer – this had been impossible to achieve until now,” Dr Lee said.

Associate Professor Gardiner said that doctors treated people at risk of heart attack or stroke with blood-thinning medication, but there was no way to know a patient’s susceptibility with precision – until now.

“We can apply this technology to blood from patients at risk of clotting or uncontrollable bleeding – this is a potential gamechanger,” she said.

Sherry He, a CSC-PhD scholar in Dr Lee’s group at the ANU Research School of Engineering, and Dr Samantha Montague, a postdoctoral fellow from the Gardiner group at JCSMR, supported the development of the new diagnostic device.

“Our device creates a digital hologram of a microscopic blood clot at a fraction of a second by measuring the delay time for light to travel through the clot,” Ms He said.

The team tailored a microfabricated device that can mimic a damaged blood vessel and created blood clots from human samples to reveal these blood-clotting events in the laboratory.

Ms He said the device can be fitted onto a regular microscope, but was not yet suitable to be used at the bedside.

“We need to shrink our diagnostic device, which takes up a fair amount of space in a research lab at the moment, to something that can fit into a shoebox so that it can be used in a clinical setting,” she said.
Dr Montague said the device would be further developed in tandem with existing clinical and platelet research practices.

“We have set up this new diagnostic device at JCSMR right alongside routine flow cytometry equipment that are the gold-standard for cell and blood platelet analysis,” she said.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]