My Health Record — the system formerly known as the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) — has hit a new milestone with 4 million sign-ups.
Health minister Sussan Ley announced today that more than 17 per cent of Australians had signed up for the record. The minister said that over the past four weeks there were on average 2200 registrations for new eHealth records every day.
From 1 July the newly created Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) has been the system operator for My Health Record. The organisation is a successor to the National E-Health Transition Authority (NeHTA) and was created as part of the government’s response to a review of the PCEHR rollout.
Telstra Health commercial and strategy director Tim Kelsey is set to take up the role of ADHA CEO later this month.
Last year in an effort to boost the take-up of My Health Record, the government took steps towards shifting the eHealth record system from opt-in to opt-out. As part of that process the government announced it would stage opt-out trials in Queensland and Blue Mountains, affecting around 1 million people.
Rules governing the opt-out trials took effect in February. The legislative changes allowing the minister to stage the trials can also be used to shift the system as a whole to opt-out, providing the trials demonstrate the value of the change.