An alternative approach for resolving the Secure Messaging dilemma in Australia

Sep 8, 2020

Earlier this year, just as Covid-19 was getting going, I was talking to Nathan Pinskier about the many challenges fixing GPs at this time. Nathan asked me whether there was an alternative approach to solving the secure messaging problem – which is a consistent pain point for medical practitioners, especially this year.

I thought about it and wrote up a brief description of an alternative approach that I believed would offer a way forward. For me, it was most important to solve 2 inter-related problems:

  • There needs to be a clear business rationale for all parties to get involved (vendors, GPs, specialists, hospitals, public health authorities)
  • We need to solve the directory problem – how do you pay for maintaining it? (or who pays - it’s a key stumbling block)

A wider context is that the whole secure messaging concept as dying anyway – I already posted about that. These were the design inputs I considered when I wrote the document, and reviews from selected friends were enthusiastic.

However I did not want to derail the existing SMD project that the agency was running (or be seen to try to do that). If there was any chance that it would deliver, I thought that would be a better outcome even if it was a sub-optimal approach. But six months later, it seems clear that this program has run out of steam without actually making any difference to market outcomes, and there are participants out there looking for a different approach.

So here’s my proposal:

Secure-Messaging-StrategyDownload

Note that this is just a rough outline – a lot of water needs to go under the bridge before it’s a solid proposal. I’m publishing it to stimulate thinking, and to suggest directions to various technical teams already thinking about this.

I want to thank Nathan Pinskier for starting me thinking about this (and also writing the first draft of the introduction), Brett Esler for technical input, and also Reuben Daniels and Andy Bond for review and comments.