The Australian Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record

Speaker: Michael Legg

Affiliation: Centre for Health Informatics and e-Health Research, University of Wollongong

Time: Monday 10/10/2011 from 14:00 to 15:00

Venue: Access Grid UWS. Presented from Campbelltown (26.1.50), accessible from Parramatta (EB.1.32) and Penrith (Y239).

Abstract:

In 2010, as part of a set of 'health reforms', the Australian Government committed $A 467 million to establish a 'Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record' (PCEHR). As the concept of operations for the PCEHR has evolved, it has become a hybrid of the personal health record and the shared electronic health record . The PCEHR consists of:

  • A Shared Health Summary curated by a 'nominated provider' (expected to be a general practitioner mostly)
  • An Event Index and Event Summary for 'significant clinical events' - i.e. something that might alter the Shared Health Summary and
  • A Consolidated View which is designed to bring the information together in a meaningful way - shared health summary, event summaries, discharge summaries, other clinical documents.
The PCEHR also has the facility for a 'Patient Diary' in its design.

In implementing the PCEHR a number of building blocks are required, including:

  • Foundations - Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI), Healthcare Provider Identifiers for Individuals (HPI-I), Healthcare Provider Identifiers for Organisations (HPI-O), Authentication Service, Secure Messaging and Standards, Clinical Terminologies and Information Models, and Supply Chain; and
  • E-Health Solutions - Pathology, Diagnostic Imaging, Medication Management, Referral and Discharge Summary.

The Final Concept of Operations has just been released and the PCEHR system has been promised to be operational, albeit in limited form, by June 2012!

Biography:

Michael Legg is a health informatician. He first trained as a scientist and researcher in physiology and pathology and has had 25 years as a leader in the Australian health industry, with some 20 years of that in executive roles including Health Care of Australia, Southern Pathology, Medicheck, The Sydney Square Diagnostic Breast Clinic and BreastHealth.

He is a member of the Standards Australia Health Informatics Committee (IT-14) and Co-Chair of the Diagnostics Working Group (IT-14-6-5), as well as Co-Chair of the NEHTA Clinical Terminology and Information Reference Group.

He has served as President of the Health Informatics Society of Australia, Vice President of the Australian Association of Pathology Practices, a member of the Australian Government Quality Use of Pathology Committee and Pathology Services Table Committee, the RCPA Informatics Working Group, National Health Information Standards Committee and is currently a member of the Pathology Associations Council.