Today the Australian Digital Health Agency (DHA) announced that private radiology reports will be available in My Health Record (MyHR) for the first time. Queensland X Ray (QXR), a member of the Sonic Healthcare Group (Sonic), will start uploading reports, becoming the first private diagnostic imaging company to take advantage of a new offer from DHA to all providers to connect to My Health Record.
Offers were launched today for providers of diagnostic imaging and pathology services to participate with the MyHR. DHA will partner with radiology and laboratory information system software providers to enhance their products to allow viewing and uploading to the MyHR system. The companies can apply for funding under the industry partnership offers. The offers close on June 23, 2017.
On May 31, it was announced that another Sonic company, Sullivan & Nicolaides, would be the first private provider to upload pathology reports to My Health Record. Sonic has been working with the Australian Digital Health Agency to connect its systems to the MyHR.
Sonic is the largest pathology provider in Australia and is the world’s third largest pathology/laboratory medicine company with operations in eight countries. The inclusion of private medical service providers in My Health Record would be critical for its success, as the closer the record is to completeness, the more valuable and essential it will be for clinicians and patients alike.
In its 2017-18 budget, the Australian government announced plans for a national roll-out of an opt-out model of My Health Record over a period of two years and allocated AU$374.2 million for the implementation. There is a 2017-18 target for all States and territories, two private diagnostic imaging providers and two private pathology providers to share diagnostic imaging and pathology reports with the My Health Record. By 2018-19, 60% of reports by private pathology and diagnostic imaging providers for consumers with a My Health Record would be uploaded.
About this latest announcement, Dr David Mitchell, representing the Australian Orthopaedic Association, said: “Surgeons welcome this announcement. It will enable us to track down where imaging has recently been performed so that we can contact the diagnostic imaging provider and ask for the images to be sent to us. The next step will be to use this foundation for surgeons to be able to access recent imaging on-line and we look forward to working towards this goal.”
