Only four organisations have so far transitioned to including individual provider identifiers in My Health Record uploads, with most exemptions expected to end in December.
The Australian Digital Health Agency is preparing to take over responsibility for the national Healthcare Provider Directory from Services Australia as part of a broader push to consolidate provider information and shift Australia’s health system towards FHIR-based information exchange.
The agency’s latest annual progress report on the National Healthcare Interoperability Plan and Healthcare Identifiers Roadmap says the transfer is proposed to occur from February 2027.
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The agency has completed a feasibility assessment on integrating the Healthcare Provider Directory with Healthdirect Australia’s National Health Services Directory, with the proposed model incorporated into the Health Connect Australia architecture.
A joint roadmap has also been developed for the National Health Services Directory, Health Connect Australia Provider Directory, and Provider Connect Australia.
The report says the model is intended to reduce duplication and provide a more complete national view of healthcare providers, organisations and services.
“Principles for a dual directory model were endorsed, positioning HCAPD as a single access point providing a comprehensive, near real-time view of provider information,” it says.
The directory work sits within a wider transition to standards-based information exchange using Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or FHIR.
The agency says the Health Connect Australia Provider Directory will initially draw on the existing Healthcare Provider Directory, with National Health Services Directory integration to begin after the pilot.
However, the report also shows that implementation of healthcare identifiers in clinical information flows remains limited.
ADHA is working with states, territories, and private health organisations to ensure Healthcare Provider Identifier-Individual numbers are included when clinical documents are uploaded to My Health Record.
“To date four organisations have successfully transitioned to uploading HPI-Is to the My Health Record,” the report says.
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It says most organisations are expected to stop relying on temporary exemptions from December 2026 and routinely include HPI-Is in uploads.
The report does not identify the four organisations, disclose how many currently hold exemptions, or state how many may need exemptions beyond December.
The pace of implementation also varies substantially between jurisdictions.
Victoria is working towards full HPI-I compliance by June 2027, while Tasmania’s broader integration is linked to an electronic medical record planned for 2028.
Queensland is embedding healthcare identifiers progressively through projects including eMR Cloud, Queensland Master Patient Index enhancements, and its Transfer of Care Information solution.
NSW Health has expanded its provider directory across all Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency boards to support its Single Digital Patient Record program, which is scheduled to continue to roll out across local health districts until 2028-29.
Western Australia reported about 90,000 electronic prescriptions a month and more than 30,000 daily My Health Record views, alongside work on HPI-I uploads, digital pathology, and imaging requests and aged care discharge interoperability.
Overall, the ADHA says 35 of the 44 actions in the National Healthcare Interoperability Plan are now complete.
Standards, innovation, and benefits actions are recorded as fully complete, while identity is 50% complete and information sharing is 66% complete.
The Agency says its focus in 2026-27 will move from “foundational planning and reform activities to implementation and sector engagement”, including greater use of healthcare identifiers, improved matching and scaled API-enabled, FHIR-based exchange.
