PCEHR Lead Sites

As part of the 2010/11 Budget, the Federal Government announced it will spend $466.7 million over two years to create a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record (PCEHR) for every Australian that wants one. This funding is intended to establish a secure system of personally controlled electronic health records that will provide:

  • Summaries of patients' health information;
  • Secure access for patients and healthcare providers to their eHealth records;
  • Rigorous governance and oversight to maintain privacy.

The proposed approach to building a national PCEHR system is based upon a combination of ‘top down’ national initiatives and ‘bottom up’ lead implementation projects. This will allow the delivery of tangible eHealth project outcomes on the ground – critical for building clinical, consumer and political support for the national PCEHR agenda - whilst at the same time ensuring a focus on the national frameworks and actions required to deliver a national electronically interoperable health care system.

Lead Implementation Sites will likely be made up of health sector organisations partnering to establish a community of interest focused on implementing PCEHR components that support sharing or aggregation of electronic health information at a geographic or sector functional level, such as health record repositories, discharge summary capabilities or medications management capabilities.

Wave 1
The Commonwealth has provided funding to Hunter Urban Division of General Practice (HUDGP), GP Partners Limited, and Melbourne East General Practice Network Limited (MEGPN) to work with NEHTA to prepare implementation plan proposals for lead implementation projects.

Wave 2
The key objectives of these eHealth sites are to achieve national demographic coverage, widespread coverage across the healthcare sector, deliver early benefits and demonstrate new and innovative concepts.

Together, these eHealth sites offer:

  • Targeting of a broad number of key groups such as mothers and newborns, aged care, people with chronic conditions, palliative care and Indigenous populations.
  • Coverage of all states and territories and rural and regional communities.
  • Inclusion of a number of healthcare sectors - public and private, primary care, aged care and private specialists.
  • Broad coverage of the vendor community, with vendors comprising the majority of the market in acute and primary care involved in one or more of the sites.
  • Projects which test and support broad consumer engagement and registration.
  • The broad set of functions that the PCEHR will need to provide so that lessons and foundations can be derived to support the development of national infrastructure. In addition to Health Summaries, Discharge Summaries and Medications, the portfolio also includes Personal Health Diary and Consumer Portal implementations.
  • Delivery of early benefits in a range of areas, including improved coordination of care, enhanced continuity of care, improved medication management and the delivery of sustainable components which will enable later integration with the national infrastructure.

The nine organisations selected to develop a Project Implementation Plan are:

  • Accoras
  • The NSW Department of Health
  • Cradle Coast Electronic Health Information Exchange (Tasmania)
  • Calvary Health Care ACT Limited
  • A consortium of Government, GP Networks and Aboriginal run health services from NT, SA and far north WA
  • St Vincent and Mater Health Sydney Limited
  • Fred IT Group Pty Limited
  • Medibank Private Limited
  • Mater Misericordiae Health Services Brisbane

Fact Sheets