PIACBulletin16 - Public Interest Advocacy Centre

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operations against the Abu Sayaff According to Neri, this situation will inevitably lead to armed conflict in the Philippines, and US allies in the War on Terror will inevitably be asked to support the battle Australia, as an ally, may thus be dragged into a war that breaches Filipino sovereignty The War on Terror thus not only has the power to kill people, but also the capacity to destroy societies, says Neri By pitting nations against each other, the War on Terror as currently waged strikes a blow against long-term international peace And by pitting citizens within countries against each other, the War is able to break down the notion of shared humanity on which the stability of nations, especially multicultural nations, relies “Once that happens, all manner of human rights abuses are possible, be they official (such as the internment of citizens as prisoners of war or ‘suspects’, merely by virtue of their ethnicity), or otherwise (such as the sharp rise of vilification of women who are easily identifiable as Muslim)” By defining “aggression”, says Neri, the Rome signatories may encourage nations to be “less unrestrained’ in the declaration of war In that way, the ICC may be not only be a forum to achieve justice, but may also become an effective instrument for peace At the same time, by virtue of the ICC’s indictment mechanisms, NGOs campaigning for international justice have a real opportunity to play a role in the prosecution of aggressors before the ICC So once the appropriate definitions are in place, those NGOs could offer every citizen of the world an opportunity to act as a watchperson in the war on aggression # National Pro Bono Workshop launches new Centre Andrea Durbach, PIAC Director and PILCH Co-ordinator Late last year, the Attorney General, the Hon Daryl Williams AM QC MP, announced that PIAC, with national project partners, had been awarded the tender to establish a National Pro Bono Resource Centre The National Centre, initially housed at PIAC and now operating from premises at the University of New South Wales, was launched in August at a National Pro Bono Workshop held in Sydney In his opening address to the National Pro Bono Workshop, Professor David Weisbrot, President of the Australian Law Reform Commission and Chair of the National Pro Bono Task Force, highlighted a key principle which informed the work of the Task Force: “that the provision of pro bono services should be driven by client needs, and not by what lawyers are prepared to offer …There is an urgent need to ‘map client needs’ – and the availability and accessibility of corresponding legal resources” This exercise will be a major initial focus of the new National Pro Bono Resource Centre, launched by the Attorney General, the Hon Daryl Williams, at the National Pro Bono Workshop The establishment of a National Pro Bono Resource Centre was the “centrepiece” of the Task Force Report’s Recommended Action Plan which asserted a national need for a body that would develop strategies with key stakeholders to ensure the provision of targeted, quality pro bono legal services The Task Force envisaged that the new centre would seek to achieve these services by: • “promoting a culture receptive to pro bono work; • improving outreach services and community education; • providing tools and training to willing lawyers; • providing ‘matchmaking’ opportunities that will enable skills and resources to be sent from wherever they are located to wherever they are most needed; • removing structural barriers; • sharing information about successful programs in Australia and overseas” Many of these objectives and the legal needs of rural and remote communities were discussed during a one-day intensive forum convened by the Public Interest Law Clearing House NSW (PILCH) and PIAC and funded by the Commonwealth Government “Overcoming Barriers: A National Workshop on Pro Bono” brought together 70 people from across Australia with expertise in the provision of legal services to explore opportunities for, and barriers to, pro bono work The workshop was also designed to assist the future work of the National Pro Bono Resource Centre Gordon Renouf has been appointed the inaugural Director of the NPBRC with Jill Anderson as the Centre’s Policy and Research Officer and Liz Cotter, as Administrator The NPBRC can be contacted on 02 93857381 # 6 PIAC Bulletin No 16 • December 2002
Patient records go electronic Amanda Cornwall, Senior Policy Officer Earlier this year, PIAC’s senior policy officer, Amanda Cornwall, completed a Churchill Fellowship study tour examining electronic health records schemes in Canada, England, France, Ireland and Germany The study focussed on the potential benefits of schemes that link patient information across the health system and on measures to protect privacy and confidentiality Development of electronically linked patient records is a priority in many countries as part of a new era in health service delivery They are part of a vision for health care services using telephone call centres, websites, internet linked patient records and telehealth Usually they are linked to software programs that support decision-making by health professionals, providing up-to-date information and automatic checks, such as adverse drug reactions Electronic Health Records schemes (EHRs) have been designed to perform a number of different functions The most wellestablished schemes are used to process financial claims, such as hospital billing, health insurance claims and government benefits Some current schemes keep basic patient information that would be useful to travellers, such as allergies, immunisation status and blood type The more ambitious schemes aim to provide a comprehensive, summary lifetime patient record across the whole health system The primary purpose of these schemes is to assist health care providers in diagnosis and treatment The schemes will also provide government and insurers with much more information for use in health service financing and planning, and for research purposes The Australian public has generally embraced the benefits of electronic health records, but only if the confidentiality and security of their medical record is protected People want to be able to control what information will be shared by each health care professional who is treating them Many are also concerned about the security of information transmitted over the internet Another risk is unauthorised browsing of patient records if security measures and audit trails are not in place Effective privacy laws and security measures are therefore a fundamental requirement for EHRs During her study tour, Amanda met with privacy commissioners, officials from departments of health, representatives of professional associations, insurers, health infomatics experts, academics, and consumer advocates All of the countries Amanda visited are developing and planning EHR schemes Like Australia, they are based on publicly funded health systems In all of the countries, including Australia, a high priority is a scheme that provides a complete record of patients’ medications as so many injuries occur due to incomplete information about a patient’s current or past medication history Health Ministers in Australia have strongly supported EHR projects and have provided substantial funding for their development The Federal Government has initiated development of HealthConnect, an internet based network providing for national collection, storage and exchange of summary patient information across the health system The Better Medication Management System is also planned, to provide a nationally linked patient medication record using records held by doctors, pharmacists and hospitals The NSW Government has announced NSW EHR*Net to provide web-enabled access to a life time summary record of patient information held by the NSW public health system Participation in these schemes will be voluntary for patients The projects are in the research and development stage, with field tests to be conducted during 2002-2003 and introduction scheduled for late 2003 or 2004 Privacy laws have been introduced at the national level and in some states and territories The result is a confusing patchwork of laws rather than a clear and consistent national privacy standard The report of the study tour, Connecting patient records, makes a number of recommendations about EHR schemes in Australia based on the experiences of Canada and Europe It recommends that the field tests for the EHR schemes in Australia should test the ability of EHRs to improve the quality of health care, not just specific functions of the schemes EHRs are only a tool, they can not in themselves improve communication between providers and patients, which is crucial to good health care The report also recommends that field tests need to be conducted for a sustained period to discern valuable lessons Field tests in England have provided a wealth of information about the best design of EHRs after testing for 2 years The report recommends that governments need to do more to achieve a nationally consistent framework for privacy laws in the health sector, a fundamental building block for EHRs It also recommends that privacy commissioners play a more active and public role in providing advice on the privacy and security aspects of EHRs In France and Ontario, Canada, for example, the privacy commissioners provided publicly available reviews of proposed EHR schemes Connecting patient records, which has been sent to state and federal governments for their consideration, is available from PIAC # PIAC Bulletin No 16 • December 2002 7
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PIACBulletin16 - Public Interest Advocacy Centre

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