The Australian Digital Health Agency has released a five-year roadmap for raising the uptake of national healthcare identifiers in Australia.

Developed with the Department of Health and Aged Care and Services Australia, the National Healthcare Identifiers Roadmap 2023-2028 outlines specific actions to take for the broad adoption of healthcare identifiers, which are unique numbers used to identify individuals, healthcare provider individuals, and healthcare provider organisations. These identifiers are issued through the national system, HI Service, operated by Services Australia.

WHY IT MATTERS

The federal government envisions a future where national healthcare identifiers are readily available and universally used by all individuals and healthcare providers in all health information exchanges and digital health projects involving health information sharing. It also aims to reduce or eliminate the mismatch in individuals' 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.

"Increased adoption of the national healthcare identifiers will mean Australians will avoid having to retell their story as they move across the health system," Simon Cleverley, assistant secretary of Digital Health at DoHAC, explained. 

"Access to information in real time will also support healthcare providers to make well-informed clinical decisions and care plans."

In the coming years until 2028, the government will pursue the activities outlined in the roadmap, focusing on legislative changes, service improvements, technical updates, and operational enhancements.

It seeks to reform the HI Act, which implements the national system for assigning unique healthcare identifiers; publish a federal government policy position on HI Service adoption; develop a simple guide to the HI Act; create a template of policies and guidelines on healthcare identifiers use; and issue a policy on healthcare identifiers use in consumer applications. 

Work to improve the HI Service includes enhancing data matching (including for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples) and data quality, reviewing existing messages and responses, improving search considerations, creating individual healthcare identifiers for newborns, and enabling consumers to enter or verify registration data and easily update their information.

On the technical side, the government seeks to create guidance for organisations on appropriate structures, the conduct of a conformance review and update of the HI Service, the update of its technical standards, the extensibility of the HI Service architecture, and the development of guidelines on clinical systems architecture and functional requirements.

To improve operations, a stakeholder engagement and communication 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's governance structure and processes.

THE LARGER CONTEXT

The creation of the National Healthcare Identifiers Roadmap is part of actions outlined in the National Healthcare Interoperability Plan 2023–2028. The plan also seeks the wide uptake of healthcare identifiers "to enable a connected and interoperable health system where every person, healthcare provider, and organisation can be accurately and quickly identified." 

Also part of the ADHA's Interoperability Plan is collaborating with industry. In 2022, the agency partnered with Health Level Seven Australia to raise the adoption of FHIR standards across the Australian health system. 

ON THE RECORD

"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,” Peter O’Halloran, chief digital officer at ADHA, said in a media statement.