National activities

Australia has a representative on each of the IHTSDO committees, the Management Board and General Assembly and is actively participating in the majority of IHTSDO working groups.

Over the last 12 months, National Development has focused on establishing and extending the capabilities of a National Release Centre (NRC) for clinical terminology. The NRC currently provides online license registration and maintenance, and releases SNOMED CT International and Australian Releases via a secure website. Our consolidated Helpdesk manages all support questions and issues and uses ITIL-based processes that we are refining with experience.

Other activities include the creation of a collaborative toolset required to develop the Australian extension to the International Release of SNOMED CT and deliver the SNOMED CT International Release to Australian license holders.

The main focus of terminology development has been the release of the Australian Medicines Terminology. The other area of focus has been scoping terminology reference sets to support the domain packages being developed by the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) which include pathology and discharge summary.

National Alignment for Secondary Uses: Whilst SNOMED CT has been recommended in Australia as the core reference terminology for use in electronic health records, it is recognized that these records contribute to statistical and administrative collections, which in Australia are typically encoded and aggregated using ICD-10-AM and International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC), with collection based on national minimum data sets. NEHTA and Australian Institute for Health and Welfare (AIHW) are working closely to develop a secondary use framework to guide future activity in this area.

Implementation plans/activities

NEHTA implementation strategy: NEHTA has been founded by Australian governments to establish the national infrastructure and standards required to underpin eHealth in Australia. In addition to clinical terminologies, NEHTA’s work program includes the development of specifications in the areas of clinical information (data specification and interchange format), identifiers, identity management, interoperability, and secure messaging. As part of providing a solution for the eHealth community, it is NEHTA’s aim to provide clear direction for stakeholders on how these specifications will work together. This is proposed through the delivery of ‘packages’ of services that relate to clinical domain areas where exchange of information is critical to improving health service delivery. The clinical domains include pathology results reporting, medication management, discharge summary, and referral. A package as delivered by NEHTA is intended to describe how NEHTA’s specifications are to be adopted and used in conjunction with one another and to provide enough supporting material to inform adoption and implementation across the e-health community.

National engagement and education: Our engagement and education over the last 12 months has included:

• The formation of Medicines and Pathology Reference Groups involving jurisdictional and association representatives. These Reference Groups provide valuable industry knowledge and feedback, as well as critical reviews of our localized development products.
• A third party review of the Australian Medicines Terminology was completed.
• A SNOMED CT Implementation Forum was held in August 2007 during MEDINFO, IHTSDO and ISO meetings. The forum attracted 200 participants and provided an opportunity to hear first hand from a range of international SNOMED experts and local vendors who are implementing SNOMED.
• A Technical Education Seminar was held in Brisbane in December 2007 to further raise awareness and knowledge in the community.

Affiliate activities

As of February 2008, 140 Affiliate Licenses had been issued through the NEHTA website to Australian Affiliates. Approximately 70% of Affiliates are organizations. A number of Australian vendors have been working to implement SNOMED in their offerings. One Australian state, New South Wales, is currently implementing a system which uses SNOMED CT as its core terminology.