NEHTA at the IHE Australia SMD Connectathon
Australia’s first Secure Message Delivery (SMD) Connectathon was held in Canberra from 19 to 23 April 2010.
Over 45 participants from industry, government and GP Divisions visited the collaborative event which was organised by IHE Australia, an open not-for-profit organisation supporting the interoperability needs of e-health Standards users in Australia. The Connectathon was funded by DOHA, and supported by the Medical Software Industry Association and Standards Australia.
Thirteen software companies took part in the event, developing code and testing the interconnectivity between their commercial software applications, using new specifications published by Standards Australia in March, and testing procedures developed and monitored by the NATA-accredited Australian Healthcare Messaging Laboratory (AHML).
NEHTA participated in the Connectathon to test its own implementation of the SMD specification alongside those of other participants and to provide volunteer technical expertise to assist other early adopters of the SMD profile. NEHTA’s SMD implementation is available for free download from NEHTA’s public website.
NEHTA Manager Secure Messaging, John McMillan said the event was a great opportunity for participants to work with each other to improve and test their products. “It was a highly productive environment because of the peer support and the rapid feedback provided by testing against other implementations,” Mr McMillan said.
“The Secure Message Delivery specification is an important step towards achieving e-health interoperability and improving access to health information in Australia. An event such as this is welcomed because it will give confidence to purchasers of products which have implemented the SMD specification that their vendors’ claims for inter-connectivity have been tested.”
Further information is available here.