Those Who Suffer Much, Know Much 2010 - User Control Panel

of public and commercial health systems. As with patient testimony, whenpublic health data is spread far and wide it has less value and less potential toimprove outcomes than it would if it were brought together.Clearly, incorporating all public health data, including patient testimony,centrally into health systems has immense potential to improve healthoutcomes, reduce the economic and community burden of health, improvenational productivity, and slow health inflation.How could any government implementing ehealth systems justify support fordisparate, commercial health data and IT systems - where data remainsisolated in ‘silos’, and where operating systems (hardware, software,frameworks and processes) are incompatible and therefore, incapable ofmeaningfully merging data with other systems to extend our collective healthknowledge?With such potential to contribute to improving national health outcomes, howcould any government justify a public ehealth path forward that perpetuates‘silos’ of health data or isolates patient testimony?And, how could any government remain comfortable delegating yet anotherslice of the public health pie to the commercial for-profit sector and its vestedinterests, thereby sentencing the future potential of ehealth to certain death by‘conflict of interest’ implosion.Has the commercial sector proven itself a fit advisor or primary caretaker ofvaluable public health data? Have they proven themselves capable ofprotecting privacy or sharing information freely in the national interest of publichealth and patients? Have they proven they can prioritize quality healthoutcomes over profit at every opportunity? Have they proven themselves to beeffective self-regulators?Exposing an injusticeMany of our health economies and systems are sick and unjust. They’re costlyand inequitable. They don’t place sufficient value on health success andimproving health outcomes. They don’t place sufficient value on advocating forthe patient. They don’t place sufficient value on the need for public healthresearch and clinical network studies in the public’s best interest. If they did,there’d already be a body sanctioned to speak and act on this compelling bodyof testimonials.How many stories similar to the LDN story are out there? We don’t know,because they haven’t all been collected, stored, and shared centrally.That makes me feel uneasy and it should make you feel uneasy. This LDN storyis just the tip of the iceberg, and until now, we’ve been blinded to the injusticethat lies beneath. Case Health Pty LtdRevised – July 2007, July 2008, July 2009, July 2010Page 29/433