My Health Record lab uploads double as ADHA prepares to launch push notifications

NEWS  - eHealthNews editor Rebecca McBeth

Australia's My Health Record system has more than doubled its weekly pathology result uploads and the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) is soon launching  push notifications in the 1800MEDICARE app, says its chief digital officer.

Peter O'Halloran spoke at the Digital Health Festival in Melbourne in May where he said that over the last three years weekly uploads of pathology results to My Health Record have more than doubled. 

The agency has also released Australia's first national digital health standards framework and is preparing to launch push notifications for test results in the 1800MEDICARE app within months.

The app allows users to access and store electronic prescriptions, check pathology and diagnostic test results, share immunisation records and view their medical history.

"What is going live in the next few months is going to be like every other app on my phone where I get push notifications," O'Halloran said. 

"Up pops a notification saying you have got a new diagnostic test result or a discharge summary has been released."

The notifications will also include proactive health reminders, such as flu vaccination prompts, with direct links to health service booking functionality.

He said consumer engagement with the system has increased substantially as the agency recently celebrated over one million downloads of the MEDICARE app, with users increasingly accessing their health information through the app and the website.

O'Halloran said clinicians are also using My Health Record to provide better care by accessing information from other healthcare providers, including discharge summaries and blood work results when patients present for emergency care.

"Often the benefit of My Health Record really is not for the consumer, it is often the clinicians using it to provide care," he explained. 

"Seeing what happened elsewhere, seeing a discharge summary for a presentation that you never knew occurred, seeing some blood work that might have been done in community when the consumer turns up at three in the morning in ED."

He told the conference that the ADHA has released its first national digital health standards framework, which adopts a principle-based approach, prioritising use of international standards.

"We always try to adopt international standards rather than reinvent the wheel and make things different in Australia," O'Halloran said. 

"It makes it so much harder to share with everyone else."

The framework covers clinical safety, security, privacy, and terminology standards relevant to Australia's healthcare system.

Image: Peter O'Halloran 

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