Sticks and no carrots as govt pushes GPs on e-health records

Last night’s budget announcements finally answered the oft-repeated question of how the National e-Health Transition Authority would continue to function and how the PCEHR would be rolled out once the current funding for both projects expired on 30 June.

The government will spend $233.7 million on e-health over the next two years, contributing $67.4 million to NEHTA and $161.6 million to operate the PCEHR and another $4.6 million on privacy and security safeguards for the system.

But that money will come from a total of $257.5 million stripped out of the existing telehealth initiative - which will now end