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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday February 21 2019, @11:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the if-you-have-nothing-to-hide dept.

Last year the Australian government decided to follow in the ill fated footsteps of other countries and change the electronic online health system from opt out to opt in causing many people to make the effort to out out. When you see millions of Australians getting off of their collective arses for something like this you know it is serious. More serious perhaps than the Sunday football. Then the pollies extended the opt out period a couple of times. To give everyone a chance to vote with their feet. Now that the final final final opt out period has ended the numbers are in.
Around 10 percent of the population of Australia opted out of the ehealth record system. Those who are left will now have a record created for them and data automatically loaded into it from government systems.

I am so shocked. Australians. Doing something. Shocked, I tell you, shocked. And alarmed.


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  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday February 21 2019, @03:13PM (9 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday February 21 2019, @03:13PM (#804538) Journal

    Here's the benefit: You get whacked in the head, have an external head wound which is bleeding, and are unconscious. The thieves take your wallet and nobody there knows who you are. You are carted to the emergency room of a hospital you've never been in. In addition to pushing the saline bolus they hang a sidecar of amoxicillin as a routine protocol. Ooops! You just died of anaphylactic shock, they mistook your reaction for grand mal seizure due to the trauma, sorry! It sure would have been nice if the ER had a universal record to call on to show you were allergic before they hung that....

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  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday February 21 2019, @03:16PM (4 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday February 21 2019, @03:16PM (#804539) Journal

    Taking one thing back.... let's say they didn't take your wallet so they know who you are but they can't contact your family. (Yeah, they couldn't pull your record without knowing who you are until they include biometrics like fingerprints - that's next year). At any rate, cutting down errors is one benefit. A second is, "sorry, the physician referring you hasn't sent your records over here yet.... come back next week!"

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday February 21 2019, @04:56PM (3 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Thursday February 21 2019, @04:56PM (#804573)

      One of my brothers (who passed away 15 years ago) had a chronic health problem and had a lanyard and little medallion stating his condition and who to contact. I'm not sure if he always wore it, but you don't need your data to be "in the cloud", although it seems most people think that's the only option.

      • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday February 21 2019, @07:07PM (2 children)

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday February 21 2019, @07:07PM (#804638) Journal

        Absolutely. And sometimes the medics and doctors look for them. But don't bet the farm on it. [emsworld.com] It would be far more effective to have a protocol that one checks a cloud resource.

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        This sig for rent.
        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday February 21 2019, @11:58PM (1 child)

          by RS3 (6367) on Thursday February 21 2019, @11:58PM (#804783)

          So much of what I write is in context, and therefore I'm so often misunderstood. I was writing in these contexts:

            1) yes, a universal health info database, universally accessible by the desired people (EMS, doctors, nurses, etc.) would be amazing, awesome, wonderful, etc.
            2) many people strongly prefer, if not demand, that our data is private and only accessible to people we allow (doctors, nurses, EMS, etc.)
            3) we (humankind) have not figured out how to make data available "online" and be absolutely secure.

          Some people may not care at all, or to them it's more important to have the data available.

          Some who are not okay with their data being in someone's database (which is being administered by lower simians) should be given the option of the lanyard tag.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @04:15AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 22 2019, @04:15AM (#804870)

            Are you saying that if we poured all of this data into a huge database then some scum at the lower end of the gene pool who has access would try to make a quick buck by selling it to whomever will pay?

            https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/04/indias-national-id-database-is-reportedly-accessible-for-less-than-10/ [techcrunch.com]

            Scandal! Racist! Classist! AntiHuman! How dare you think such things. Turn yourself in for reconditioning immediately.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 21 2019, @03:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 21 2019, @03:21PM (#804540)

    When you wanna do some dirty ass shit, like fuck someone in the ass, you will always talk up the benefits.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday February 21 2019, @08:52PM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 21 2019, @08:52PM (#804702) Journal

    You just died of anaphylactic shock, they mistook your reaction for grand mal seizure due to the trauma, sorry!

    Your fault, really.
    If you really wanted to live, either you shouldn't have developed allergy to antibiotics or tattooed 'Alergic to... ' on your chest instead of that 'Do not resuscitate, mate, I mean it!'

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @12:07AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 23 2019, @12:07AM (#805391)

      Your fault, really.
      If you really wanted to live, either you shouldn't have developed allergy to antibiotics or tattooed 'Alergic to... ' on your chest instead of that 'Do not resuscitate, mate, I mean it!'

      I know it's probably an unpopular opinion, but I agree with this one. I opted out of MyHR not once, but twice! The first opt-out was "undone" when the date was extended. Don't know if that's just my particular case or it was systemic. If systemic it could explain why the numbers were only 10%.

      Back to the pots I'm replying. Medicalert is a thing, so is a giant tattoo that says "allergies: penicillin" but a lot of people are reluctant to get either. The bracelets/chains are expensive and a lot of people believe tattoos are only for thugs and trouble makers (my mother fits into the category who believe the latter and won't pay for the former, despite an allergy so severe she can't even visit me for a week after I have been prescribed penicillin because it causes her throat to tighten). It is her fault if she is carted into emergency without any ID and dies as a result.

      Up to the GP. In the scenario where you're beaten unconscious, robbed of all ID and carried into the E.R by strangers, there is no scenario where having a global health record helps anyway. If the E.R. staff don't know who you are how can they look you up? Sure, they could add biometrics to the record, but they are currently flawed as method of accurately identifying a specific individual from a sufficiently large set. Chances are good they'd end up with an incorrect file open anyway.

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:57AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 23 2019, @05:57AM (#805477) Journal

        I opted out of MyHR not once, but twice! The first opt-out was "undone" when the date was extended.

        Say... what?
        Fuck! If true, then I'll have to do something: I opted-out first time but never crossed my mind to check.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford