The Australian Digital Health Agency has published a new roadmap to enhance the usage of the Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service).

A collaboration between the Department of Health and Aged Care (DoHAC) and Services Australia, the roadmap outlines the use of healthcare identifiers – unique numbers for individuals used by healthcare providers to connect their related information – as part of a “connected and interoperable health system” where every stakeholder can be “accurately and quickly identified”.

“Healthcare identifiers are the linchpin for safe, secure and seamless information sharing across the nation’s healthcare system in near real time. They are central to the evolution of digital health and will empower Australian healthcare consumers to have continuous care across all healthcare facilities in every corner of Australia,” the agency’s Chief Digital Officer, Peter O’Halloran, said.

The HI roadmap suggests solutions for states, territories and service delivery partners to increase the up-take of the HI Service and in turn create a better-connected health system to improve health outcomes for Australians.

These include:

• Improving the quality and accuracy of the HI Service and associated data;
• Enhancing the functionality and usability of the HI Service;
• Increasing the awareness and adoption of the HI Service across the health sector; and
• Enabling innovation and future-proofing the HI Service.

“Increased adoption of the national healthcare identifiers will mean Australians will avoid having to retell their story as they move across the health system. Access to information in real time will also support healthcare providers to make well informed clinical decisions and care plans,” DoHAC’s Assistant Secretary of the Digital Health Branch, Simon Cleverley, said.

“The Healthcare Identifiers Roadmap follows the release of the Australian Government’s Digital Health Blueprint and Action Plan 2023 – 2033 and other key digital health strategies and plans and furthers the commitment to leverage national infrastructure.”

This comes as the agency also submitted a request for tender for advice on developing and implementing “a set of principles, a framework, an operational model and a proposed roadmap for insourcing products and services that the Agency can implement from as early as the last quarter of 2024”.

The tender indicated the digital health services or products able to be considered include My Health Record, My Health App, Application Programming Interface Gateways, infrastructure/data centres, Healthcare Information Provider Service (HIPS), Real Time Prescription Monitoring System, Provider Connect Australia and electronic prescribing.

“Services Australia has a long history of developing systems in support of Australia’s healthcare delivery. As the HI Service operator, we look forward to working with our colleagues and the broader healthcare industry in this initiative, which will promote a modernised, better connected healthcare system,” General Manager of the Health Programs Division at Services Australia, Stuart Turnbull, said.