Discussion Paper

Abstract

The concept of Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) attracted considerable attention in Australia in 1986 when the Federal Government released a discussion paper on the subject. Linked with the argument that HMOs provided financial incentive for people to keep healthy, hence their emphasis on preventative medicine and health education, HMOs were seen to have the potential to play a part not only in controlling risk factors in our lifestyles but also the spiralling costs of health care. The Government's publication, HMOs — A Development Program Under Medicare, drew on the Federal Government's extensive examination of the American experience where HMOs have flourished since the 1970s. It now appears that HMOs are not living up to their promise of low cost health care with an emphasis on prevention, although the Director of the Institute of Health Economics and Technology Assessment, Dr. Paul Gross, has recently suggested in the journal Hospital and Health Care (1988) (19 (10), p.24) that HMOs, if set up properly, could help save a total of half a million years of life every year. Maybe HMOs will yet see the light of day in Australia. If they do, there are some significant implications for Australian medical record administrators who might be called upon to assume similar roles in HMOs to their American counterparts. MRAs in the USA have become key resource people in HMOs in recognition of the critical role information systems play in the successful management of such organisations. In the discussion paper which follows, Sheree Lloyd looks in some detail at the concept of HMOs and examines the potential impact their introduction could have on MRAs in this country. Significantly, her message is not confined to HMOs. Health care facilities of all shapes and sizes are having to meet the demand for well organised information systems. Hence we should all heed Lloyd's call for MRAs to be “innovative and progressive” in our approach towards the challenges confronting the health care field in general and health information management in particular.