The Australian Digital Health Agency has today launched the National Framework for Digital Health Standards, calling it a “milestone for connected care.”
Launching the framework at the Digital Health Festival in Melbourne, Agency chief digital officer Peter O’Halloran said the need for nationally aligned standards was growing as digital health adoption accelerated.
“As pathology and diagnostic imaging reports are increasingly shared to My Health Record ahead of the 1 July mandate, the number of times Australians have viewed this information has grown significantly – by 112 per cent (from 54 million to 114 million) and 72 per cent (6.5 million to 11.2 million), respectively, over the past year,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“As mandatory sharing expands to more key health information, scalable and conformant national digital infrastructure becomes critical to safe, reliable information sharing across the health system.
“Conformance built on consistent standards gives Australians confidence that digital health systems can work together as intended, and that the information healthcare providers rely on is timely, accurate, secure and clinically safe,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“The adoption of globally consistent clinical terminology is a key foundation for the safe and appropriate use of artificial intelligence in healthcare.”
He told the DHF audience the framework was “a huge piece of work that we’ve done in conjunction with the entire sector.” To encourage its use across the Australian health ecosystem, the Agency was supporting key health standards development organisations in Australia and internationally.
Practical guidance
Meanwhile, Agency chief executive officer Amanda Cattermole said the National Framework for Digital Health Standards would provide a foundation for innovation and support “the seamless integration of digital tools into all the healthcare settings that Australians rely on.”
“Different organisations have developed and applied standards in isolation, with limited coordination to fit those pieces together across the system,” Ms Cattermole said.
“The National Framework for Digital Health Standards provides clear, practical guidance and aligns governance, standards development and implementation across government agencies, jurisdictions, health services, partners and industry.”
The Agency has also established the Standards Academy to provide free training to help clinicians, developers, policymakers, researchers and industry to apply digital health standards in practice. The Standards Academy would help build capability in the “consistent adoption and implementation” of key standards, including SNOMED CT, GS1 and FHIR.
