Practice Management Software

 

Standards and specifications

General requirements

Cyber security

The software must demonstrate ability to effectively achieve mitigation strategies in line with ‘Essential 8’.

Privacy

Data collected about an individual by medical software is likely to constitute health information. Due to the sensitive nature of this information, it generally has a higher degree of privacy protection than other personal information, under relevant federal, state and territory legislations.

The software must demonstrate adherence to relevant federal, state or territory privacy legislation for example, the Privacy Act 1988 (Federal) or Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 (NSW).

The applicable federal legislation is the Privacy Act 1988.

Details of the relevant state and territory legislations are contained under the State and territory requirements section below.

Core requirements

Standards for identification

The software must:  

• be able to discover and validate Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI) via the Healthcare Identifier (HI) Service Business-2-Business web services
• integrate Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHIs) into the local patient record
• where the PMS stores local directory for Healthcare Providers allow for:
  • the storing of Healthcare Provider Identifier-Organisation (HPI-O) in the local system associated with the locally stored healthcare provider organisation details
  • the storing of healthcare provider identifier-individual (HPI-I) in the local system associated with the locally stored healthcare provider individuals’ details.
• support data capture and storage of unique device identification of medical devices as defined within AS ISO/IEC 15459.4:2023 Information technology — Automatic identification and data capture techniques — Unique identification, Part 4: Individual products and product packages
• support adherence to Patient Identification best practices as outlined by the Australia Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.

Australian Core Data for Interoperability (AUCDI)

The software should support the use of AUCDI Release 1.

Note: The focus of the AUCDI Release 1 is the representation of the clinical content necessary for each of the data groups identified within the Release 1 scope.

Development is continuing to enhance AUCDI

Standards for data sharing

The software should:  

• support the authoring and consumption of clinical documents in Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) formats.

Standards for terminology, code sets and classifications  

The system should:

• support Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine-Clinical Terms AU (SNOMED CT-AU)
• support Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes (LOINC®)
• support person and provider identification in healthcare National Best Practice Data Set
• support the National Clinical Terminology Service (NCTS).
• support Australian Medicines Terminology (AMT).

If used for referrals for pathology, the system must:

• support Standardised Pathology Informatics in Australia (SPIA)

If used by Allied Health professionals, the system should (as required):

• be capable of using Nutrition Care Process Terminology (NCPT) (Dietary)
• support the National Allied Health Classification Committee (NAHCC) Allied Health Minimum Data Set.

National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards

Implementation of NSQHS is mandated in all hospitals, day procedure services and public dental services across Australia.

The system must:  

• support adherence to best practices related to Informed Consent
• support adherence to all relevant National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards in accordance with the intended scope of the system being procured. These may include, but not limited to the following standards:
  • Partnering with Consumers Standard
  • Communicating for Safety Standard
  • Comprehensive Care Standard
  • Blood Management Standard
  • Medication Safety Standard
  • Clinical Governance Standard.
• support adherence to all relevant Clinical Care Standards.

Connections to National Systems

HI Service

If the software is expected to deal with healthcare identifiers (e.g. in a hospital environment) then it must either:

• be able to discover and validate Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI) via the Healthcare Identifier (HI) Service, or

where the enterprise utilises an enterprise-wide system for discover and validation of Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI) the software must:  

• be able to manage and interface with this middleware in order to enable discovery and validation of Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI).

My Health Record

The software must:

• be able to upload a (document type) to the My Health Record system
• be able to respect patient consent at a patient and document level when contributing clinical information to the My Health Record system
• be capable of downloading and viewing [document type] from the My Health Record system.

Real Time Prescription Monitoring (RTPM)

If the system will be utilised by clinicians with the authority to prescribe medications, the system must:

•     connect to the National Real Time Prescription Monitoring system

•     connect to the National Prescription Delivery Service and the Active Script List Registry (ASLR).

Registries

If the practice has authority to deliver vaccinations, the system should

• connect to the Australian Immunisation Register (AIR).

The system should

• connect to the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods (ARTG).

Provider Connect Australia

The system should

• connect to Provider Connect Australia.

Medicare Online Claiming

The software should:

• Connect to Medicare claiming channels using direct software integration
  • Medicare Online claiming (Medicare Online)
  • ECLIPSE integrated with practice management software (PMS)
  • Medicare Easyclaim

Conformance

The software must:

• have production access to the Health Identifiers Service
• conform with the My Health Record Conformance Assessment Scheme
• conform to the Provider Connect Australia service
• conform with the Electronic Prescribing conformance profile.
• If the system will be used for prescribing, the system should conform with the eReferral conformance profile.

State and territory requirements

The following state and territory requirements must be upheld based on location.