Consulting with consumers

The right person, the right place, the right time

The introduction of healthcare identifiers for consumers will improve the delivery of safe, quality healthcare. Legislation will set out HI Services governance, privacy safeguards and permitted uses of healthcare identifiers. Healthcare identifiers are the foundation for a future individual electronic health record. This will give individuals and their healthcare providers an up-to-date picture of your health status and with your permission, your doctor can share that information with your other healthcare providers.

Consultation is ongoing

The success of any reform initiative depends on acceptance of its implications by those who are most impacted. Consumer research suggests that 82% of Australians support the introduction of e-health. However, ongoing consultation is essential to ensure that consumer concerns are adequately understood and addressed.

On the proposed introduction of healthcare identifiers

In July-August 2009 Australian Health Ministers concluded a month-long period of public consultation on legislative proposals for healthcare identifiers and privacy. Submissions were invited on a public discussion paper and a series of consultative forums held in July 2009. The latter included stakeholder meetings and consumer focus groups.

A wide range of feedback was received from more than 90 public submissions during the consultation process and a report was compiled for consideration by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG). In December 2009, a second round of consultations on an exposure draft Healthcare Identifiers Bill was conducted to seek further public output prior to finalising the legislation.

Collaborating with Healthcare Providers

All Federal, State and Territory governments are currently undertaking e-health initiatives to build capability. The National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) is working with jurisdictions to implement healthcare identifiers as a foundation to support key e-health initiatives:

• NSW. The Picture Archival System will allow transmission of digital X-Rays and the Radiology Information System for radiologists' reports will complement this process.
• NSW. The Clinical Repository Project for public hospitals is about establishing individual electronic health records based on the HI Service.
• All States and Territories. Developing accurate, efficient and secure transfer of healthcare information between GP and public hospitals, including referrals and hospital discharge summaries.
• SA and NT health departments are collaborating to ensure that secure transfer of healthcare information can occur between these two health jurisdictions.

NEHTA support

NEHTA is supporting the early adopter project teams from each of the jurisdictions by locating or providing, as required:

• project managers
• clinical leads
• enterprise architects
• solution architects
• subject matter experts

Management process

Each of the projects is being managed according to standard project management practice. The process follows a typical lifecycle:

• Plan
• Analyse
• Design
• Build
• Test
• Deploy

Benefits of a staged approach

NEHTA can work with early adopters in the absence of completed specifications and support materials:

• the HI Service can be stresstested ahead of full rollout
• lessons learnt from early adopters will be available to support full deployment
• progressive testing of support processes and materials allows for a more robust implementation support capability

Collaborating with Vendors

The National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) is the lead organisation supporting the national vision for e-health in Australia, working openly, constructively and collaboratively with consumers, providers, funders, policy makers, the broader healthcare industry and health IT vendors.

The role of vendors

Vendors will play a key role in the implementation of the Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service which will be broken into six phases.

Meeting vendor needs

NEHTA is committed to addressing vendor needs at each stage of the vendor journey:

• probity - no vendor will be given favoured consideration
• clarity - vendor briefings will be aligned with HI Service releases
• flexibility - product development can be staged to match each jurisdiction's e-health timetable