CEO’s message to software industry partners
1 June 2010: This year is a landmark in the development of Australia’s national e-health infrastructure. The $466.7 million Budget go-ahead for our first Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record, along with pending legislation to introduce Healthcare Identifiers, demonstrate the commitment of the governments of Australia to reform the healthcare system.
The national Healthcare Identifiers Service has now been built and Release 3 testing is currently underway enabling operations to commence when the Healthcare Identifiers Bill is passed. These foundations will form the basis for other activities currently underway such as discharge summaries and referrals and a range of other e-health enhancements.
The information and communications technology industry has a unique role to play in delivering these innovations. While NEHTA is responsible for developing guidelines and specifications defining core elements of our national e-health infrastructure, it is the ICT industry that will take the vision to market through its products and services. NEHTA is not a software developer, rather it is the role of the private sector to take up the innovation challenge and deliver solutions to the market.
Many companies and industry organisations have already made a significant contribution generously sharing their views on the NEHTA work program through consultation and reference groups. Still more are eager to start building and, to these businesses, I extend a note of caution.
Legislative approval for the national Healthcare Identifiers Service will not automatically trigger a massive national rollout of e-health change – nor are businesses, clinicians and patients expected to be prepared for overnight revolution.
Instead, NEHTA is working to a staged approach, enabling its work to be carefully tested, trialed and refined before being broadly implemented over the next 18 months to two years. After all, the health of the medical software industry and patient safety is at stake. More detail on the proposed timeframes and consultation is available in the HI Services Implementation Approach document.
While some software vendors may join the implementation journey more quickly than others, NEHTA is committed to ensuring all businesses have fair access to emerging long-term opportunity, and the knowledge and support mechanisms these early adopters help develop will be widely shared.
The Implementation Approach is a great place to start to understand the pathway forward for all participants in e-health for Australia. Our site also has documents for vendors and links to assistance from Medicare Australia.
We are entering an exciting new era for health with the implementation phase about to commence. We look forward to working with all vendors more closely over coming months.
Peter Fleming
CEO