State, Territory and Commonwealth Governments have released a joint statement in support of new mandatory standards for secure messaging in Australia’s healthcare sector.
The Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) said the new standards meant health practitioners across Australia would be able to communicate patient information safely and effectively.
Interim CEO of ADHA, Bettina McMahon said the Agency had been working with industry and governments over a number of years to achieve interoperable secure messaging across different systems which were necessary to accelerate the use of electronic messaging over fax machines and paper transmission.
Ms McMahon said the Agency had worked for three years to solve the messaging issue.
“We’ve had quiet confidence that we could co-produce specifications and standards with industry and professionals, try them out in early implementations, and get to a point where Australia’s customers of these systems would require their use,” Ms McMahon said.
“We’re now at that point – with Governments confirming that future procurements will reference the standards as mandatory requirements,” she said.
Former chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Expert Committee – eHealth and Practice Services, Dr Nathan Pinskier said the new standards solved a major deficiency in healthcare secure messaging.
“In this new decade of 2020, this collaborative program is now poised to deliver tangible benefits to both healthcare providers and their patients,” Dr Pinskier said.
