Update to NSQHS Standards for day hospitals and private surgeries

The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC) recently announced that healthcare facilities who are accredited to the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards will have to develop a plan for implementing systems that can provide information to the My Health Record platform.

Advice from Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care (ACSQHC)

All public and private hospitals, day procedure services and public dental practices are required to be accredited to the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards.

Many other healthcare facilities will also choose to be accredited in order to improve the safety and quality of health care provision. When seeking assessment to the NSQHS Standards, health service organisations must review and provide evidence against Advisory AS18/11.

Actions 1.17 and 1.18 of this advisory relate to health service organisations implementing systems for the use of the My Health Record system.

Connecting My Health Record to your clinical software

To connect to My Health Record you’ll need to use an electronic medical record (EMR) software that is conformant with the My Health Record platform.

MedicalDirector Clinical, which is used alongside half of practices using Bluechip, is conformant with My Health Record.

If you’re using another software product to manage clinical notes, you can check here to see your if your EMR software is conformant with My Health Record.

If you’re interested in MD Clinical as a conformant EMR software for your clinical notes and to connect into My Health Record, you can find out more here.

How to connect to My Health Record

To register and participate in the My Health Record system, your organisation will need to complete the following steps as outlined by ADHA:

Identify a responsible officer (RO) within your organisation
Create a PRODA account for the responsible office, any other administrators (‘organisation maintenance officer’ (OMO)), and any clinicians who will be using MHR (if they don’t already have one).
Register your ‘seed organisation’ and obtain an HPI-O (Healthcare Provider Identifier – Organisation) with the Healthcare Identifier (HI) Service (this can only be done by the RO).
- Register any ‘network organisations’ to link to your seed organisation (multi-site organisations only)
Link your Healthcare Provider Identifiers in HPOS (Health Professional Online Services) within PRODA:
- HPI-O Healthcare Provider Identifier – Organisation
- HPI-I Healthcare Provider Identifier – Individual (all clinicians)
Request and download a NASH certificate (National Authentication Service for Health):
- Within HPOS go to: Healthcare identifiers > My organisation details > Certificate tab > Request a NASH PKI site certificate
- NASH certificates are valid for two years and can be requested or renewed by the RO or any OMO
Link your NASH certificate in MD Clinical (or other conformant software) to turn on My Health Record access.

Other things to consider

Your organisation also needs to make appropriate updates to policies and train adminstrative and clinical teams to ensure they are familiar with policies and procedures.

Support resources

Resources are available from the ADHA website which may provide further understanding of the My Health Record system including how to register and set up access: My Health Record for healthcare providers | Australian Digital Health Agency.

You can also access two webinar recordings by registering here:

WEBINAR 1: Implementing My Health Record in a Private Hospital and Day Surgery: foundations and registration

WEBINAR 2: Implementing My Health Record in a Private Hospital and Day Surgery: participation requirements and getting started