Announcement date
24 July 2025
Link to announcement
Problem being addressed
Australia’s digital health system is fragmented, with information about the health services delivered to consumers contained in siloed clinical information systems. Information is not easily accessible when consumers move between public and private settings, from primary to acute care, or across state and territory borders. This makes it difficult to uniquely match consumers and identify their past health interventions in different care settings, including aged care and disability support. Providers lack a consistent, holistic view of consumers’ care needs. Consumers need to provide their information repeatedly, which can compromise their privacy and negatively impact diagnosis and care planning.
Proposal
The Impact Analysis (IA) considers three options to support greater interoperability of the Australian digital healthcare system:
- Option 1: Status quo
Maintain current settings for the use of healthcare identifiers by health professionals and services in the health system.
- Option 2: Enhancing the current healthcare identifiers framework
Amend the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 to better support the exchange of health information in clinical settings and between healthcare providers, but not expanding the use of healthcare identifiers into aged care and other support services such as disability services.
- Option 3: Expand and optimise the healthcare identifiers framework
Build on option 2 by also amending the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 to enable healthcare identifiers and other identifying information to be used in relation to the delivery of health and aged care and other support services, including the delivery of disability services, and for health-related and health administration purposes.
Based on the assessment outlined in the IA, Option 3 is the preferred option as it considered best placed to achieve positive outcomes for consumers and providers in enhancing information-sharing and data use in clinical decisions, multidisciplinary care and monitoring health interventions and outcomes.
Assessed Impact Analysis outcome
Good Practice
Assessment comments
The Impact Analysis addresses the seven IA questions and follows an appropriate policy development process commensurate with the significance of the problem and the proposed intervention. In particular, the IA presents a compelling case for government action and identifies key milestones of implementation, including responsibilities and governance arrangements. To achieve an Exemplary rating, the IA could have been improved by further detailing the evaluation method, including data collection, management and assessment.
Regulatory burden
The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing estimates that the proposed amendments will increase average regulatory costs for business by $2.5 million per year, over five years. The cost has been assumed to fall to the software sector that supports health and care service providers, and health administration entities.