2010 Update

National Activities

The National Clinical Terminology & Information Service (NCTIS) is the group within the National e-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) that performs the National Release Centre functions for Australia. It is responsible for the production and release of the Australian national release – SNOMED CT-AU along with the national medicines extension – Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT). SNOMED CT-AU is released twice yearly (May & November) and is Release Format 2 (RF2) compliant. AMT is released monthly.

Implementation Plans/Activities 

During 2010, the NCTIS worked alongside a number of vendors to implement the AMT within their products. This has seen these products released into various clinical settings and has been a significant step forward.

NEHTA supports the Australian government in its commitment to enable all Australians to have the option to sign up for a personally controlled eHealth record (PCEHR) from July 2012. The design will be based on a number of Clinical Document Archive (CDA) interoperability specifications, including Health Summaries, Referrals and Discharge Summaries. The NCTIS also undertakes the Clinical Information modeling work to develop and release the various interoperability specifications. A significant activity during 2010-2011 was the development of a range of SNOMED CT-AU and AMT Reference Sets for binding into these information model specifications. Future releases will see the development of additional Reference Sets to support these specifications. During 2011 and 2012 these will be implemented by a range of software vendors, including GP clinical systems. The NCTIS will be heavily involved in supporting these vendors with their implementation activities. 

Affiliate Licensees/Activities

Australia currently has 408 affiliate licensees. 

Current Representatives 

General Assembly: Bettina McMahon

Management Board: David Bunker

Member Forum: Dion McMurtrie

National Release Center: National e-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA)

http://nehta.gov.au