The federal health department has taken to monitoring social media for complaints and commentary about the long-delayed roll-out of the national My Health Record program.
First launched by the then-Labor government in 2012, the electronic health record system was meant to create a universal online health record for every Australian, to help coordinate patient care between GPs, specialists and hospital staff.
But four years after it was introduced, the scheme's national roll-out has been slowed by a lack of public take-up and health practitioners not getting involved as a result, as the cost of the scheme has ballooned to more than $1 billion.
While the current government ordered a review which made several recommendations in 2014, including to change it to an "opt-out" system, but it is unclear what progress has been made.
As the roll-out continues under the name of My Health Record, the Health Department has contracted out for "social media listening services" since May this year, under two contracts to data consultancy firm Lexer Pty Ltd, worth about $44,000, to the end of this year.
A Health Department spokeswoman said the service monitored comments about the My Health Record publicly posted online on platforms including Twitter and Facebook, including key terms such as "eHealth, health record, #myhealthrecord and #digitalhealth".
She said in a statement that the contract included a "customised dashboard to monitoring communication activity" about the program and "identify comments or trending issues" related to it.
It also helped the department to "tailor or create communications to address concerns being raised on social media and other publicly available online channels".
"The data also helps inform and guide the department on the reach, impacts and effectiveness of My Health Record communications through planned events, forums, and consultations and through other My Health Record public awareness raising activities," she said.
The monitoring was part of the department's wider social media monitoring program, through contracts with media monitoring service iSentia, since May 2015.
The spokeswoman said the contracts gave the department "insight into the environment in which policies and programs are developed, implemented and managed" and allowed an "effective response to emerging issues", including health emergencies".
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