Australia’s My Health Record System was upgraded on 13 and 14 March to improve usability for consumers and healthcare providers.
The government has noticed the important role My Health Record has played in large scale crises such as the Queensland floods and the recent bushfires, where pharmacists and hospital staff have relied on information in the My Health Record to provide care.
The changes in this new release improve the way a person’s medicines list appears in the My Health Record and will provide a better user experience for consumers logging into their Record and setting security controls.
The government is confident these improvements will continue to build trust within the community for the My Health Record and provide crucial support to the health system and consumers over the coming months.
Security controls
The security and safety of health information is the main concern for both patients and their healthcare providers.
Hence, the latest My Health Record system upgrade has made it even easier for people to find where to set access codes, add emergency contacts and nominate representatives.
The Interim CEO of the Australian Digital Health Agency stated that one of the main changes in the latest upgrade of My Health Record makes it much easier for people to control who sees and accesses their health information.
Advance care planning
Ensuring that a patient’s loved ones and healthcare providers understand their wishes when they can’t speak for themselves is very important.
Even if someone has documented their wishes, this information may not be readily available to healthcare providers in emergencies. The latest system upgrade of My Health Record brings us one step closer. Consumers can also upload their advanced care plans into My Health Record.
The upgrade has new functionality that allows healthcare providers to generate and upload Advanced Care Planning and Goals of Care documents into My Health Record via their clinical information system.
Advanced Care Plans detail future medical or health care preferences and guide family, close friends and medical professionals if someone is unable to communicate due to illness or injury. An individual or their healthcare provider can add this document to My Health Record.
A Goals of Care document contains a patient’s preferences for their end of life treatment and is agreed between the patient and their healthcare provider. It can only be completed and uploaded by the treating healthcare provider.
Medicines view
With 250,000 hospital admissions in Australia each year due to preventable medicine-related problems, improvements to the My Health Record system mean that both patients and health professionals will have access to more complete and accurate information about their medicines than ever before.
The Medicines View changes will ensure any differences in naming conventions for the same medication are reflected as a single medicine line eliminating unnecessary duplication, and identify where changes in medicine form and/or strength have occurred.
About the Australian Digital Health Agency
The Agency is tasked with improving health outcomes for all Australians through the delivery of digital healthcare systems, and implementing Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy – Safe, Seamless, and Secure: evolving health and care to meet the needs of modern Australia in collaboration with partners across the community.
The Agency is the System Operator of My Health Record and provides leadership, coordination, and delivery of a collaborative and innovative approach to utilising technology to support and enhance a clinically safe and connected national health system.
These improvements will give individuals more control of their health and their health information, and support healthcare providers to deliver informed healthcare through access to current clinical and treatment information.
