Doctors have long asked an existential question about My Health Record. Why does it exist? What is its clinical utility?

It has now amassed 1.7 billion documents — from medication lists to radiology results to health summaries.

And yet for many, the system that was intended to reduce patient harm by preventing medication misadventures, bungled diagnoses and unnecessary tests or interventions appears to have no role in the day-to-day workflow of doctors and the wider system.

Despite the recent wonders of digital technology, to its critics, after 15 years, My Heath Record is still a “shoebox of PDFs”.