Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

E-health data standards close to confirmation

The federal government is only weeks away from formalizing data standards for Australia's national electronic health record system.

Putting in place an immediate working model for HealthConnect is critical to meet Health Minister Tony Abbott's ambitious, 12-month time frame.

InterSystems managing director Denis Tebutt is rolling out a proposed working model for the electronic health record system this week at the Health Informatics Conference in Melbourne.

However, Tebutt said a clinical document architecture including the HL7 (messaging) standard, open EHR (electronic health records) CEN (a European initiative for standards in health care informatics) is still required to share patient data securely.

Dr Ian Reinecke, CEO of National e-Health Transition Authority (NeHTA), has confirmed that HL7 standard and the open EHR architecture is currently under evaluation.

HL7 refers to communications at the application level, which addresses the data about to be exchanged as well as supporting security checks, participant identification exchange mechanism negotiations and data exchange structuring.

Chairman of HL7 Australia, Klaus Veil, said it is not about choosing one standard over another.

However, Veil said the government and private sector have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars in systems that support HL7 Version 2.

Since NeHTA was given the job of evaluating standards more than six months ago, Veil said the decision-making process had been frozen and the FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) factor is rife.

He said there has been no engagement with existing stakeholders, experts or vendors involved with the Australian Standards body. "We are still waiting to be told the exact rules and guidelines for the EHR system," Veil said.

However, NeHTA is expectedto confirm the standards in coming weeks, Veil said.

Using HL7 as the standard for clinical data is likely as it was supported by the former Minister for Health Michael Wooldridge and endorsed by the Australian Health Ministers Advisory Council in July 2004.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: HealthConnect, InterSystems

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Top Reasons to Implement an SOA Governance Strategy: A List for IT Executives
    Service-oriented architecture (SOA) has moved beyond hype to widespread acceptance as an IT strategy for delivering business value. SOA promotes the notion of modularity, providing overwhelming flexibility and superior economics for addressing business demands. However, undertaking the transformation to SOA is not without its challenges. If left unchecked, your inventory of SOA assets will become unmanageable; the reuse of services will diminish in favor of custom development; or even worse, modifications will be made to your existing services that break other business processes. The purpose of SOA governance is to help you ensure that this does not happen. This paper outlines the most compelling reasons for you to establish SOA governance within your organization.
    Learn more »
  • Enterprise Buyers Guide for Cloud Storage
    Customer interest in public cloud storage is increasing, driven by the promise of affordable, elastic storage for archiving, backup/recovery, and disaster purposes. To understand the types of offerings available and to assist buyers with purchasing decisions Computerworld has prepared a public cloud storage buyers guide.
    Learn more »
  • Providing effective endpoint management at the lowest total cost
    Endpoints, otherwise known as servers, workstations, laptops, mobile devices, and virtually any other network-connected device, are critical components that enable business to be transacted. Properly implemented, endpoint management ensures continuous compliance with IT policies, regardless of where the machines are located and what type of network they are connected to.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments