HealthConnect

Health Connect Australia: The New Health Information Exchange

Health Connect Australia (HealthConnect) is the latest initiative developed by the Australian Digital Health Agency (Agency).

The overarching goal of HealthConnect is to deliver superior health outcomes through standardised and shareable clinical information. By ensuring that critical clinical information is accessible and of high quality whenever and wherever it is needed, HealthConnect aims to create a more efficient and effective healthcare system.

Today, adoption and usage of digital health systems and associated information are ubiquitous around the globe. This is also the case within Australia, where large-scale investments at a state and territory level have proceeded at pace, along with broader digital health system adoption at a more granular level across primary and community care settings. Nationally, the My Health Record system has made considerable progress overcoming information gaps for healthcare providers since 2012. There is also significant consumer and provider support and momentum to continue the transformational digital health initiatives such as telehealth adoption that occurred within Australia as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic.

However, despite all the progress made, barriers remain that hinder the complete harnessing of all of the potential benefits from digital health adoption. These barriers are both technical and policy/legislative in nature. The need to develop and adopt interoperable standards and technologies to better facilitate the movement and exchange of health information were repeated themes that arose within the research that underpin this document. These are also core areas of focus of the National Digital Health Strategy and the National Interoperability Plan. From a legislative and policy perspective, streamlining national frameworks for effective health information sharing across care settings and locations continues to be a fundamental requirement to enable healthcare providers to confidently access and share information where appropriate.

Some states and primary health networks have made progress towards solving this issue across localised boundaries in the absence of a national solution. However, gaps continue to exist that particularly impact safe and effective transitions of care, shared care journeys, streamlined sharing of health information and the ability for healthcare recipients to exercise self-management and control of their health information.

In summary, HealthConnect will serve as a secure, interoperable, and patient-centric information-sharing network, enabling the efficient exchange of data, promoting better health outcomes, and empowering consumers to actively manage their health.

The establishment of HealthConnect, along with the Agency’s existing national infrastructure modernisation agenda, will provide the foundation for the future of healthcare services in Australia. The implementation is likely to be a multi-year program of work with ongoing refinement and prioritisation in phases as initial capabilities are developed and implemented.