The 'net' generation, spanning 13 to 33 year olds, has embraced technology as the norm and is expected to adopt e-health as just par for the course in their highly connected lives according to several leading youth health experts.

Jonathan Nicholas, Chief Executive Officer of the Inspire Foundation, the organisation behind the web-based mental health support service for young people, ReachOut said, "As an organisation that uses the internet to connect with young people, we see a number of benefits for young people flowing from the proposed e-health record.

"They have grown up archiving their life on social networking sites such as Facebook, so saving personal data into web environments is neither alien, nor something they fear. To the contrary, they expect to be able to access their information when they need it, and save it into a secure, centralised location."

Dr Lena Sanci, Deputy Head of the Department of General Practice at Melbourne University, a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and who also works as a GP at a drop in clinic for youths agreed, saying that they liked the web based interface.

"Often young people may not remember everything they have talked to their GP about and so they would find it sensible to have information about their health linked up.

"There is a lot of unmet need in young people, so the more information that is available within their reach the better. Having access to their own health record and using these mediums is in fact talking their language.

"As GPs, we need to feel comfortable with this and then we can help make them feel comfortable with it and use the technology to help screen for health risks in young people," said Dr Sanci.

Both experts agree that the issue for many young people will be who is able to access their health records, such as parents, as this will affect how open young people will be with their GP or other health professionals when discussing sensitive information.

"We believe that this initiative will fail if it doesn't safeguard young people's personal information."

"If implemented well, we believe the e-health record will be a great opportunity for young people to better manage their health and wellbeing", said Jonathan Nicholas.

Dr Nathan Pinskier, a Clinical Lead for the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) is a Melbourne General Practitioner and an expert in practice management systems and information technology. He agrees that e-health will help improve the safety and quality of healthcare.

"Among young Australians aged 12-25 years, depression is the most common mental health problem affecting around one in four adolescents. Typically when being treated, these patients will have more than one healthcare provider who all need accurate and up to date information about the patient's care and medication. E-health will help achieve this."

"The new Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service is the first step towards a robust e-health system in Australia that will improve how health information is communicated and managed," he said.

To ensure that GPs can deliver the highest standard of care to their patients, the RACGP is ensuring that the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) is informed of what is reasonable, workable and useful for GPs when leading the progression of e-health in Australia.

Source:
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners