Govt develops a unique healthcare identifier service

The Minister for Human Services, Senator Joe Ludwig, and the Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, have welcomed the signing of a contract between Medicare Australia and the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) for the development of a Unique Healthcare Identifier (UHI) service.

The UHI service will accurately and uniquely identify people who receive healthcare in Australia and the people who provide healthcare, as well as the places where it is provided.

The UHI program is being developed to support progress toward the proposed establishment of a national Shared Electronic Health Records System, a system with the potential to save lives and reduce costs.

“One of the key building blocks for the establishment of this system is the means for uniquely identifying patients and health professionals, which will ultimately reduce the possibility of information being sent to the wrong health professional or being assigned to the wrong patient,” said Ms Roxon.

NEHTA is a not-for-profit company established by the Australian, state and territory governments to develop better ways of electronically collecting and securely exchanging health information.

Under the contract with NEHTA, Medicare Australia will be responsible for the design, building and testing of the UHI service.

This project is a significant collaboration between state and federal governments to provide the building blocks for Australia’s e-health future.