Concept of Operations: Relating to the introduction of a Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record System
8.2 Implementation and adoption strategy
Given the fragmentation of Australia’s health sector and the breadth of autonomous and independent stakeholder systems that will need to be integrated, implementation of a national PCEHR System will need to be driven at both the national and the regional/local level. Focusing on one area but not the other will simply lead to the creation of regional and local information silos or the building of national infrastructure with no ability for local systems to integrate with it.
The proposed approach to building a national PCEHR System is based upon a combination of ‘top down’ national infrastructure initiatives and ‘bottom up’ lead eHealth Sites. This will allow the delivery of tangible eHealth project outcomes on the ground, which is critical for building healthcare provider, individual and political support for the national PCEHR agenda, while at the same time ensuring a focus on the national frameworks and actions required to deliver a nationally interoperable PCEHR System.
For the proposed approach to be successful it must integrate effectively with the national hospital and health reform agenda and be supported by a number of core streams of activity: Governance and Legislation; Lead eHealth sites; Change and adoption; Benefits and evaluation; Standards, Foundations and architecture and National infrastructure.
The diagram below represents the key activities and milestones across each of the core streams. It includes ongoing consultation with key stakeholders and the Australian community throughout 2011 and 2012. The consultation process has been about informing the design of the PCEHR System through the Concept of Operations and obtaining input to the drafting of national legislation. There also continues to be a focus on working with healthcare providers and the ICT industry on developing the necessary specifications to enable the PCEHR System.
The implementation plan includes a number of lead eHealth sites, which will continue to build momentum throughout 2011 and 2012 and provide valuable lessons relating to adoption of eHealth across communities throughout Australia. Importantly these lead sites will inform a national change and adoption strategy, which will provide further insights to options for broader adoption of the PCEHR System across the health sector.
At a national level, work will continue in 2011 and 2012 on the design and implementation of the national infrastructure and core PCEHR specifications. Further, progress will also continue to be made on related foundation eHealth services, such as the Healthcare Identifier service, which are necessary for the deployment of the PCEHR System.
The Department has engaged a number of delivery partners to support the delivery of activities within these core streams. A more detailed description of their roles and responsibilities is outlined in the following sections.
