Patients, doctors to be e-tagged: report

(AAP) - A federal government plan to give every patient and doctor a unique e-health record would save the Australian health system $7.6 billion a year and prevent 5000 deaths, a report says.

The rollout of a nationwide electronic health identifier system would reduce errors
caused by uninformed doctors giving patients the wrong drugs, an analysis by US
management consultancy Booz and Company has found.
The government wants the e-health program to begin in July 2012.
The report estimated the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission's proposed
e-health model would save $7.6 billion a year by 2020.
More than a third of this amount - $2.8 billion - would come from a reduction in
errors.
An e-health system would prevent an estimated 5000 deaths in Australia every year,
the report says.
Report co-author Klaus Boehncke said many deaths were caused by doctors giving the
wrong drugs because they were unaware of a patient's medical history.
"There are a lot of studies that correlate - there are real issues for Australia,"
he told AAP.
"If you don't have the full information about a patient, it's hard to make the right
choice."
His report cited Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association data showing one in
10 Australian patients treated every year by a GP were given the wrong drugs,
resulting in up to 18,000 deaths.
E-health records are used in the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Singapore
and Hong Kong.
The United Kingdom and Germany are devising their own systems.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon introduced legislation to the lower house of parliament
in February to set up an Australian healthcare identifier system.
Mr Boehncke said the government's flagged health reforms, including a four-hour
emergency waiting and treatment times, would depend on e-health records.