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PCEHR Standards

The Australian Government will deliver a PCEHR System and associated services as part of a $466.7 million investment announced in the 2010/11 federal budget. The PCEHR Programme will provide all Australians who wish to participate with the ability to register for their own personally controlled electronic health record from 1 July 2012.

NEHTA is responsible for a range of activities required to deliver national eHealth capability, including the design and specification of the PCEHR System, the core components of which are to be developed and delivered by a National Infrastructure Partner, with oversight by NEHTA and the Department of Health and Ageing.

As a principle, NEHTA specifications will adopt existing specifications and standards, and may inform further development of these specifications and standards. It is noted that there has been extensive work in Australia on the development of health informatics standards by Standards Australia’s IT-014 Health Informatics community. This range of existing Australian Standards includes a number of standards that support integration of eHealth systems, many of which are based on international standards. In addition, NEHTA is committed to progressing novel specifications, where a suitable existing Standard does not exist through the Standards Australia development and publication process.

In January 2011, NEHTA engaged an independent Standards Consortium, made up of local and international experts from the Standards Community, to review the PCEHR Concept of Operations and recommend the most appropriate Australian and International Standards to support specification, development and delivery of the PCEHR System for use in the Australian health sector.

Using the review and the PCEHR High-Level System Architecture, NEHTA produced a comprehensive analysis of these Standards, the "PCEHR Standards Analysis" to be applied to the design, profiled for use within specifications, or developed for the PCEHR. The analysis identified 145 functional areas where Standards are relevant within the context of delivering the PCEHR System.

Following analysis of these 145 functional areas, NEHTA identified 49 discrete work items to be delivered (based on PCEHR Release 1 priorities and other required NEHTA specifications) to realise the functionality needed by PCEHR and lead implementations sites for 1^st July 2012.

The diagram below is a graphical summary of these above inputs into development of this Specification and Standards Plan and the resulting work plan.

The diagram below represents the delivery roadmap. Click on it for a larger view.

Software Developer Resource Centre

To access the specifications visit http://vendors.nehta.gov.au/. Here you will find the specifications and standards for the PCEHR system categorised into three groups:

• PCEHR Core Services - these specifications describe the PCEHR Core Services that healthcare organisations and consumers will interact with.
• eHealth Foundations - these specifications and frameworks describe foundations for eHealth.
• Clinical Documents - these specifications describe the content and structure of the clinical information exchanged between healthcare providers.

At the site, you will be asked to register and agree to a set of Terms and Conditions. By registering, NEHTA will be able to keep you informed when changes are made to specifications. You can review the Terms and Conditions for this website here

Vendor Webinars

NEHTA is running a series of information webinars specifically focussed on providing the vendor community with updates on specifications and other documentation being produced. For links to the PCEHR webinars and to download the associated slide packs held recently - please click on the links below:

8 February 2012 - PCEHR Specifications and Standards

• Click here to access the recording (280MB)
• Click here to download the presentation (865KB) 

2 February 2012 - Briefing on the current issue related to the NEHTA specifications

•  Click here to access the recording (110MB)
•  Click here to download the presentation pack (330KB)

25 January 2012 - Update on the Release 1a and 1b of the PCEHR

•  Click here to access the recording (107MB)
•  Click here to download the presentation slide pack (324KB)

11 January 2012 - Further discussion on PCEHR B2B Gateway, Template Services and Repository Services (Document Exchange) specifications II & PCEHR activity for 2012 relating to software vendors

• Click here to access the recording (125MB)
• Click here to download the presentation slide pack (565KB) 

21 December 2011 – PCEHR B2B Gateway, Template Services and Repository Services (Document Exchange) specifications

• Click here to access the recording (62MB)
• Click here to download the presentation slide pack (244KB)

17 October 2011 – Introduction to PCEHR Specifications and Standards:

• Click here to access the recording (43MB)
• Click here to download the presentation slide pack (1.56MB)

The next webinar is to be scheduled: Wednesday 22nd of February, 2012 from 9am - 10am (AESDT).

Please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  if you would like to join the webinar.