The Australian Digital Health Agency has launched a call for feedback for software developers, with an aim to improve interoperability, sharing of health information and promote collaboration across care settings.
The agency is specifically seeking input on guiding consistent implementation and national alignment to HL7 and FHIR standards, for “seamless integration across clinical and administrative systems”.
Forming part of Health Connect Australia, a national health information programme designed to enable the effective sharing of health information between providers, a FHIR implementation guide is being developed to outline how information from providers should be exchanged, and feedback from software developers will help inform the technical specification.
The agency is building a national service to provide access to details about healthcare providers and their services, covering 970,000 providers to form a “trusted, comprehensive directory to support better care coordination and interoperability across Australian health care settings”. The directory will use FHIR-based interoperability standards and open APIs.
A virtual testing session is scheduled for early February 2026, and interested parties can learn how to get involved or access more information on how to submit feedback here.
Wider trend: Health data
For a recent HTN Now webinar on the role of data and digital in supporting population health management, we were joined by a panel including Victoria Townshend, portfolio director (associate) with the GIRFT Elective Team; Mayur Vibhuti, CCIO and GP clinical lead for digital at Kent and Medway ICB; and Harry Thirkettle, director of health and innovation from Aire Logic. Our panellists explored and discussed approaches to PHM, successes, challenges, what works and what doesn’t, through to measuring the impact of PHM interventions.
NHS England has published a contract worth an estimated £600,000, aiming to source an “evaluation partner” for the Federated Data Platform programme. According to the contract, the evaluation partner will be required to demonstrate the programme’s current and future impact, assessing whether it has achieved its objectives. The scope extends to capturing key learnings, and demonstrating value for money and accountability to its stakeholders, NHS England continues. Submissions are invited until the 5 January 2026, and will be assessed first on technical criteria (quality), before commercial (price) and social value (quality) criteria.
Great Ormond Street Hospital has unveiled a new platform designed to generate clinical intelligence from routine health data, developed in-house by its Data Research, Innovation and Virtual Environments (DRIVE) unit. The Paediatric Informatics Consultation Using Real-world Evidence (PICTURE) platform was launched, supporting the aggregation and analysis of EPR data. Developed using open-source languages including R and Python, the platform takes de-identified data from patient cohorts and transforms it into “a bespoke in-house common data model” developed as part of a pre-existing ETL library, that outlines clinical events like diagnoses and procedures in table format.
