Concerns grow over Telstra Health’s cancer registry contract

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Telstra Health has demanded a leading not-for-profit screening and vaccination service hand over its operational expertise, for no recompense, after beating the charity’s bid for the National Cancer Screening Registry contract.

The revelations come as the AMA and others are raising concerns about a lack of transparency over the terms of the $220 million contract and the prospect of sensitive patient information being placed in private hands.

Professor Marion Saville, executive director of the Victorian Cytology Service, said Telstra Health had been asking for intellectual property belonging to the service such as “data structures and access to our processes, policies, procedures, and so on”.

“Basically, they said we should provide information to them, in the interests of the program, without consideration,” Professor Saville told the Senate Community Affairs committee at a recent hearing in Sydney.

“As a not-for-profit charity, we think we should not be handing over our skills and expertise as we were the competing tenderer to the successful tenderer, who is now well reimbursed to deliver these things.”

The new register is scheduled to start up in May 2017, consolidating data on bowel and cervical cancer screening from the existing nine state- and territory-based registers. It will be accessible from GPs’ desktops as a ready way to identify patients’ screening eligibility and history… Read More>>

Source: Medical Republic

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