Australia's leading secure messaging and clinical software vendors have successfully proven they can securely exchange electronic referrals and discharge summaries between a range of different systems in the real world, in what is a major breakthrough for interoperability in the healthcare sector.

The Australian Digital Health Agency-backed trials are in the final stages of testing, with participants expected to be able to send production messages this week. The two consortia operating the proof of concepts are also finalising a federated search capability using FHIR-based APIs so healthcare providers can search for electronic addresses across the healthcare sector.