The Sparked Program Review looks at how Australia's first Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) Accelerator - Sparked - has performed. Sparked was launched in mid-2023 to speed up the development of digital health standards in Australia. Sparked focuses on building and localising FHIR standards, which are used globally for sharing health data safely and consistently. These standards help different health systems and software work together, making it easier to share information.
The program is funded by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and delivered in partnership with Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the Australian Digital Health Agency, and Health Level Seven (HL7) Australia. This review looks at Sparked’s progress over its first two years (2023–2025) at three checkpoints: early 2024, late 2024, and mid-2025. The goal is to see how well Sparked is helping people understand, use and adopt FHIR standards to improve how health systems connect across Australia.