The Challenge
Information about healthcare providers and services is currently fragmented across different national systems which are not linked. This makes it difficult for NSW doctors (including GPs and specialists) to find the appropriate service or named specialist for their patient’s treatment and reliably send and receive patient transfer of care documentation.
Currently provider records are maintained by staff at Local Health Districts (LHDs) and Specialty Health Networks (SHNs) through the support of the Primary Health Network (PHN). Manually maintaining these records is time-consuming and can lead to errors in contact information. This can disrupt the electronic transfer of care documentation from the hospital back to the General Practitioner (GP) and impact the continuity of patient care. Provider records also do not include information about the services in which the providers work. For example, they may list a specialist’s name, and contact details but not the name of the service where the specialist practices.
The Plan
The NSW Health Providers and Services Directories will centralise information about all NSW doctors (including GPs and specialists in both public hospitals and private practice). The new databases will improve the accuracy of provider and service information across the health system and integrate with other NSW Health systems. This will help ensure that transfer of care documentation for patients is delivered to the right contact improving continuity of their care.
Three distinct phases are planned for implementation.
- Design and build of the NSW Health Providers Directory
Information for the NSW Health Providers Directory builds on information from existing national systems including Medicare, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and Healthcare Identifiers Service (HIS). The Directory will use healthcare identifiers which are unique numbers assigned to healthcare providers or organisations that provide healthcare services.
- Design and build of the NSW Health Services Directory
The NSW Health Services Directory is a directory of individual health services and practitioners within NSW and bordering jurisdictions. eHealth NSW is working with Provider Connect Australia (PCA) to securely source the service contact information and treating practitioner details.
- Integrate the two directories
The information from the NSW Health Providers and Services Directories will be combined and made available to LHDs and SHNs to provide and update GP information locally. An up-to-date record will help hospital administration staff to easily find and select the patient’s GP when registering a patient and transferring patient information.
Chief Application Support Manager,
South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD)
The Outcome
The first two phases to design and build each directory have been completed.
The NSW Health Providers Directory has been used by HealtheNet since October 2022. This has improved compliance with federal legislative requirements to include Healthcare Provider Identifier – Individual (HPI-I) identification in clinical documentation sent to My Health Record.
The NSW Health Services Directory is planned to go live in September 2023.
From October 2023, work will begin to integrate both Directories with LHD and SHN clinical systems such as the Patient Administration System (PAS) and the Electronic Medical Record (eMR). An initial pilot will be conducted at Northern Sydney Local Health District to test the integration before statewide roll out.
Integration of both directories will enable GP information to be incorporated into current LHD and SHN clinical systems. This will support the successful electronic transfer of patient care from the hospital to the GP via documentation such as discharge summaries, specialist letters as well as to My Health Record.
The Benefits
Benefits will include:
- Improved continuity of patient care between hospitals and general practice (GPs).
- Improved compliance with federal legislative requirements to include Healthcare Provider Identifier – Individual (HPI-I) in clinical documentation to My Health Record.
- Improved processing and management of provider lists, ensuring appropriate correspondence can be electronically sent to a patient’s GP or specialist from NSW Health clinicians.
- Increased number of patients attending a hospital with accurate GP details.
Related Projects
HealtheNet is a secure, statewide portal that provides clinicians with access to patient & clinical information fro…
NSW Health is delivering a new state-wide digital referral management solution to improve the referral experience o…
The Electronic Transfer of Care (eTOC) application promotes safe delivery of healthcare through enhanced clinical i…