The journey’s long, but two years in, the wheels on the ADHA’s health data overhaul are turning.
The Australian Digital Health Agency has delivered 41% of its actions, according to its latest quarterly update.
Chief digital officer Peter O’Halloran announced on LinkedIn that the National Healthcare Interoperability Plan had completed 18 out of 44 actions, with a further 23 on track and three yet to commence. However, this is as per the timelines set out in the original roadmap.
“Since the last report was published three months ago, four actions were completed and significant progress was made on a number of other ones,” O’Halloran shared.
The four actions completed are:
- Provider Connect Australia™ rollout (Action 1.9): This is now fully rolled out. As at 6 March 2025, 3191 healthcare clinics comprising of 6431 healthcare services were registered and 39 business partner services onboarded.
- Online Interoperability Toolkit (Action 3.4): This has been expanded with case studies, templates and a new online community platform for digital health collaboration.
- Interoperability Innovation Challenges (Action 4.1): The First Connectathon of 2025 was held in March to fast-track standard implementation and innovation.
- Education Content on Interoperability (Action 4.3): New resources were developed, including tools for My Health Record registration and a privacy webinar with People with Disability Australia.
Despite the progress, Mr O’Halloran admitted there was a long way to go.
“With three years left to go on the plan, we still have a lot of work to do, but the Australian health system is powering ahead on these actions,” he said.
There has also been significant progress in some of the other areas.
Identity
Two organisations now comply with uploading documents using Healthcare Provider Identifier–Individual (HPI-I) with more jurisdictions to follow by July 2025.
Still to come are consultations about the rules for the type of healthcare information that must be shared after legislation passing in February 2025 to mandate participation and sharing with My Health Record. This consultation is on track to start mid-2025.
Standards
The ADHA continues to work on terminology in digital health systems where it is engaging with the sector and health departments to integrative national classifications.
“The Agency continues to refine the national library of terminology maps and these will be published in the Digital Health Standards Catalogue in mid-2025,” the report said.
Related
Information sharing
The Agency highlighted how it was exploring ways to help people identify and manage everyone involved in their care, both professionals and family members.
One way it’s doing this is by “supporting consumers aged 14 and above to register their preferred general practice and practitioner via the app”.
“The Agency is working with the Department of Aged Care to determine a release date.”
It is also exploring multidisciplinary care team capabilities in the app to give consumers choice in managing their care teams.
Innovation
The Agency is supporting new tools and technologies that improve connected care.
Work is continuing on the Capability Action Plan (CAP) 2024-2025 work.
“The Agency is driving the Capability Action Plan (CAP) 2024-2025 work program through targeted digital health workforce uplift and training programs for tertiary education and Vocational Education and Training (VET) sectors,” the report said.
Benefits
To help measure the progress made, the latest Interoperability Benchmark Survey was launched in March. When the survey results are released, the goal is to compare results with the last survey done in 2022.
Mr O’Halloran thanked everyone involved in the delivery of the actions, particularly the Council for Connected Care “who keep us laser-focused on the delivery of these actions”.
The council next meets in Alice Springs on the 12 June 2025.
