The National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) is a federal and state-funded body set up in July 2004. Accountable to the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council, it works to a yearly plan as agreed by ministers, and reports to them on its deployment. Its main aim is to spearhead an electronic health record across the country along with the supporting infrastructure. NEHTA's newly released guidelines - Towards and Interoperability Framework - emphasise data as key to the framework, rather than technology, and calls for open standards to be used to enable collaboration.
"Standards are used to varying extents across the health sector, using different implementations and technologies, and inconsistent approaches. In some cases, the implementation of any standards is inhibited due to the existence of products that are not standards-based," the guidelines say.
One example of the problems that the framework is designed to solve is the different versions of HL7 in use throughout the country: "Multiple versions of version 2 of the HL7 standards are still in use within Australia while an international effort is underway to migrate to the newer version 3 specifications which are yet to be completed."
It argues that the information architecture, including details of the XML-based language it is written in, "will need an agreed standard" that must be disseminated and published with policies and examples of its use. The transfer of the information must include provisions for authentication and confidentiality.
Interoperability is different from actual integration of systems, argues the document.
Quelle: Public Sector Technology & Management, 12.09.2005
