The Australian Digital Health Agency has published a five-year roadmap to scale up the adoption of national health identifiers in Australia.
The National Healthcare Identifiers Roadmap 2023-2028, developed in collaboration with the Department of Health and Aged Care and Services Australia, outlines next stepsspecific actions to be taken for the widespread adoption of health care identifiers, which are unique numbers used to identify individuals, health care providers and health care provider organisations. These identifiers are issued through the national system, HI Service, which is managed by Services Australia.
WHY IT MATTERS
The federal government envisions a future in which national health care identifiers are readily available and universally used by all individuals and health care providers in all health information exchanges and digital health projects involving health information sharing. It also seeks to reduce or eliminate mismatches in individual identification; streamline the management of identifiers and associated documents, such as digital certificates; and enable individuals to use identifiers to control their information and manage their privacy.
“The increasing use of national health identifiers means Australians no longer have to tell their whole story as they move through the health system,” explains Simon Cleverley, Assistant Secretary of Digital Health at DoHAC.
“Access to information in real time also helps healthcare providers make informed clinical decisions and create care plans.”
In the coming years until 2028, the government will continue the activities outlined in the roadmap, with a focus on legislative changes, service improvements, technical updates and operational improvements.
It aims to reform the HI Act, which implements the national system for assigning unique health care identifiers; to publish a federal government policy position on the implementation of HI services; to develop a simple guide to the HI Act; and to create a template of policies and guidelines for the use of health care identifiers.; and establish a policy on use of health care identification data in consumer applications.
Work to improve the HI service includes improving data matching (including for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) and data quality, reviewing existing posts and responses, improving search considerations, creating individual health care identifiers for enable newborns and consumers to enter or verify registration data and easily update their information.
On a technical level, the government aims to provide guidance to organizations on appropriate structures, performing conformity assessment and updating the HI service, updating technical standards, extensibility of the HI service architecture, and developing guidelines for clinical system architecture and functional requirements.
To improve operations, a stakeholder engagement and communications plan and educational materials for the HI Service will be developed. There will be a review of support arrangements and monitoring and feedback processes and the continuous improvement of the HI Service. Finally, there will be a review and update of the HI Service governance structure and processes.
THE BIGGER CONTEXT
The creation of the National Healthcare Identifiers Roadmap is part of the actions outlined in the National Healthcare Interoperability Plan 2023–2028. The plan also aims to achieve broad adoption by health care identification data “to enable a connected and interoperable health system where every person, caregiver and organization can be accurately and rapidly identified.”
Also part of the ADHA Interoperability Plan is working with industry. In 2022, the agency partnered with Health Level Seven Australia to promote the adoption of FHIR standards in the Australian healthcare system.
ON THE RECORD
“Healthcare credentials are the linchpin for safe, secure and seamless information exchange across the national health system in near real-time. They are essential to the evolution of digital health and enable Australian consumers to receive continuous care across all healthcare settings in every corner of Australia,” said Peter O’Halloran, Chief Digital Officer at ADHA, in a press release.