National Authentication Service for Health
The National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) is a key foundational component for eHealth in Australia. It is essential that the identity of people and organisations involved in each eHealth transaction can be assured, and this requires high quality digital credentials. The NASH, Australia’s first nationwide secure and authenticated service for healthcare delivery organisations and personnel to exchange sensitive eHealth information, will provide this.
In March 2011 the contract to design and build NASH was awarded to IBM, and NEHTA began working with stakeholders to develop its Concept of Operations and solution design.
The service will issue digital credentials, including digital certificates managed through the Public Key Infrastructure and secured by tokens such as smartcards. These credentials will validate identity when used to access eHealth systems that are enabled to use NASH authentication.
Specifically, NASH will:
- provide a governance approach that would allow health sector participation in the operational policies and services NASH develops
- establish the standards framework for national tokens/smartcards in healthcare delivery
- establish a national supply of digital credentials available to all healthcare delivery entities in the health sector, allowing the traceability of eHealth transactions to trusted identities
- allow healthcare communities to issue and manage authentication credentials locally, supported by national infrastructure
- support software vendors in transitioning their products to use nationally recognised digital credentials