eHealth

Healthcare Identifiers Service

The Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service) is being developed as a foundation service for e-health initiatives in Australia.

Healthcare Identifiers Service

The Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service) is being developed as a foundation service for e-health initiatives in Australia.

What’s new

12/03/2010 – As part of further consultation on the regulatory support for the Health care Identifiers Service, the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon MP has released the exposure draft regulations for comment.

In addition, a consultation paper has been released by the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council to support interested stakeholders in the making of a submission.

A media release announcing the publication of the consultation paper and the exposure draft regulations is now available: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ministers/publishing.nsf/Content/MediaReleases-NR-1

Consultation will conclude on the 9 April 2010.

05/03/2010- Submissions for the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and the Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 Senate inquiry are now available on the Parliament of Australia website .

25/02/2010 – On 24 February 2010 the Senate referred the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 and the Healthcare Identifiers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2010 for inquiry and report. The Committee is seeking written submissions from interested individuals and organisations by 5 March 2010. More details can be found on the Parliament of Australia website

10/02/2010 - The Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 was introduced to Federal Parliament today by the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon MP. A media release announcing the introduction is now available.

10/02/2010 - The Frequently Asked Questions for the Healthcare Identifiers Service have been updated and are now available.

18/01/2010 – Public consultation on the revised legislative proposals including the release of an exposure draft of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 closed on 7 January 2010.

Submissions to the public consultation process are now available.

10/12/2009 – As part of further consultation on the legislative proposals for healthcare identifiers, the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon MP has released an exposure draft of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010 for comment.

A copy of the exposure draft bill and other supporting material is now available. Consultation will conclude on 7 January 2010.

7/12/2009 – The Council of Australian Governments signed a National Partnership Agreement on E-Health setting out the legislative, governance and administrative framework for national healthcare identifiers. A copy of the COAG communiqué and the National Partnership Agreement on E-Health is available.

20/11/2009 - On the 20 November 2009 the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) released the Health Identifier (HI) Service Concept of Operations and supporting documentation, which can be downloaded from the NEHTA website

19/11/2009 - Following the recent announcement by the Australian Health Ministers Conference, a publication Building the foundation for an e-health future: Update on legislative proposals for the Healthcare Identifiers Service, is now available.

Building the foundation for an e-health future: Update on legislative proposals for the Healthcare Identifiers Service (PDF 966 KB)
Building the foundation for an e-health future: Update on legislative proposals for the Healthcare Identifiers Service (Online)

16/11/2009 - The Australian Health Ministers Conference have announced further consultation on Legislative proposals for Healthcare Identifiers. A copy of the Communique is available for download.

Communique 13 November 2009(PDF 140 KB)
Communique 13 November 2009 (Online)

16/11/2009 - NEHTA has released three Privacy Impact Assessments on the Healthcare Identifiers Service. A copy of the Privacy Impact Assessments and NEHTA's response can be found on NEHTA's website.

7/10/2009 - Submissions to public consultation on healthcare identifiers and privacy now available.

What is e-health?

Governments across Australia have committed to a national approach to e-health that will enable a safer, higher quality, more equitable and sustainable health system for all Australians.

E-health is set to improve the way healthcare is delivered by transforming the way information is used to plan, manage and deliver health services. It will achieve this through better use of information technology to facilitate electronic access, transmission and recording of health information.

Foundations, standards and solutions are being established to enable the secure electronic transfer of information such as referrals, test orders and results and prescriptions quickly and safely between healthcare providers.

In the future e-health will enable you to:

• Have electronic access to your own information helping you to better manage and control your personal health outcomes
• Support healthcare providers in their decision making by making your health information electronically available at the right place and right time
• Feel assured that your personal health information is being managed in a secure, confidential and tightly controlled manner.

Developing the foundations for e-health

A key element in progressing e-health is to establish strong foundations – including a national identifiers scheme for individuals and providers and a robust privacy regime. The integration of security protections and privacy policies will continue to underpin how your health information is handled. The way in which this information is collected, used or disclosed is already regulated by privacy laws that are set out in legislation, including health records legislation and confidentiality obligations.

In 2006, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a national approach to developing and implementing individual and healthcare provider identifiers as part of accelerating work on an electronic health records system to improve the safety of patients and improve efficiency for healthcare providers.
It is the foundations for e-health – healthcare identifiers and privacy protection - that will allow the healthcare system and consumers to realise the full benefits of using information technology to share health information more reliably and securely.

The Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service)

A healthcare identifier is a unique number that will be assigned to each healthcare consumer, and to healthcare providers and organisations that provide health services.

The identifiers will be assigned and administered through the HI Service that is being established to undertake this task.

A key aim of healthcare identifiers is to ensure that individuals and providers can have confidence that the right health information is associated with the right individual at the point of care.

For further information on the HI Service see: Frequently Asked Questions on the HI Service

How is the HI Service being developed?

The healthcare identifiers project is a Council of Australian Governments (COAG) initiative and is being developed through the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA).
For more information on NEHTA’s work program see www.nehta.gov.au

What legislation is being proposed to support the HI Service?

The implementation of healthcare identifiers will be supported by a strong and effective legislative framework that includes governance arrangements, permitted uses and privacy safeguards.

Legislation is required to establish the HI Service and to allocate this function to Medicare Australia who will be the initial operator of the HI Service. This legislation is currently being developed collaboratively by Commonwealth, State and Territory health departments.

Health Information Privacy Reform

Privacy is a fundamental principle underpinning quality healthcare. Consumer trust in the appropriate handling of personal health information must be maintained as the health sector moves to adopt and implement new technologies. Ensuring that there is a clear privacy framework will allow consumers to reap the benefits from improved information flows at the point of care, knowing that their privacy will be protected.

There have been a number of major reviews of privacy law in Australia, the most recent being undertaken by the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice, Report 108 (2008).

The recommendations made by the ALRC are currently being considered by Government. A number of additional health-specific proposals have been developed to inform the Government’s response to the ALRC report and to ensure that Australia’s national privacy framework supports healthcare delivery in both paper and electronic environments.
In recognition of the importance of privacy as a foundation for e-health developments, the additional health privacy proposals were released for public consultation as part of the consultation around the HI Service.

Consultation to date and written submissions received

On 13 July 2009 the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference announced national consultations on the legislative framework to underpin the governance, privacy and agreed uses for national healthcare identifier numbers essential to a secure national e-health system. A copy of the communique is available. (PDF 14 KB)

A paper Healthcare Identifiers and Privacy: Discussion Paper on proposals for legislative support was released describing and seeking comments on legislative proposals to support the establishment of unique identifiers for healthcare purposes and the privacy of health information. The closing date for submissions was 14 August 2009. In total 93 submissions were received.

Submissions from the consultation, for which the authors have given permission to release, are available here.

In November 2009, Health Ministers agreed to public consultation on revised legislative proposals for healthcare identifiers, including the release of an exposure draft of the Healthcare Identifiers Bill 2010. Public consultation commenced on 20 November 2009. The Bill was publicly released by the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon MP on 10 December 2009. Public consultation closed on 7 January 2010 and a total of 54 submissions were received.

Submissions on the exposure draft legislation consultation, with permission of the authors are now available.

Next steps

The feedback received from the public consultation is informing further development of the healthcare identifiers legislation. Further information on the next steps in the development of this legislation will be provided on this website as it becomes available.

Feedback received during the consultation process will also inform Governments’ response on privacy law reform that is currently underway in response to the recommendations of the ALRC Report.

You can subscribe to receive updates on the Healthcare Ientifiers Service.

Further information

For additional information please contact the Department of Health and Ageing eHealth Branch on 02 6289 3919 or ehealth@health.gov.au