Created by Tim Blake, last modified on 13 Jun, 2018

The Child Health Working Group is initially seeking to create FHIR-based API for the exchange of child health information in Australia.

Although some members of the group have a focus on particular use cases outlined below, the intent of the Child Health Working Group is to create a set of interoperability artifacts that support a broad variety of uses.  Some of these are currently understood and others are not.  A key principle of the group will be to design with the future in mind.

The currently understood use cases are:


IDUse Case NameDescription
1

Augmenting (replacing?) the Australian State "baby books" (i.e. Blue Book, etc.) with a digital alternative

The primary use case driving the development of the Child Health FHIR API is augmenting the various State-based "baby books" with an equivalent digital version. Initially, this will augment rather than replace the paper-based versions. Early versions may represent a subset of the information available in the "baby books", but should over time become functionally equivalent to (or greater than) the harmonised data requirements of all "baby books".


2

Supporting 3rd party vendor access to a National Child Health Data Hub

As the National Children's Digital Health Collaborative (NCDHC) is not tasked with building end user (i.e. health consumer or health provider) solutions, the Child Health FHIR API must support 3rd party vendor access to a National Child Health Data Hub.

3rd party solutions will likely include:

  • Solutions for health consumers to view and enter their own data (potentially mobile apps and web applications)
  • Solution for health providers to view and enter patient information (potentially mobile apps and web / desktop applications)


3

Supporting exchange of child health information with Jurisdictional child health systems

The Child Health FHIR API must support exchange of child health information with relevant jurisdictional systems. These systems potentially include:

  • Maternity
  • EMR
  • Community / Outpatient
  • GP Desktop


4Supporting exchange of child health information between the Child Health Data Hub and the My Health Record

Although not a requirement for the first version of the Child Health FHIR API, it should support the ability to exchange information with the My Health Record. This will likely include transforming FHIR representations into the CDA representations required by the My Health Record.


5Supporting the storage of information used in pregnancy (ante-natal) clinical workflows

Although not in scope for the first version, future versions will seek to extend the Child Health FHIR API to include ante-natal information, for the purposes of supporting a range of clinical workflows including pregnant mothers. In the first version of the FHIR API, some consideration will be given to the extent to which ante-natal requirements could impact the design of the Child Health API, in order to avoid unnecessary future rework.


6Viewing child immunisation information

The Child Health FHIR API should support the ability to search for and return immunisation information for a given child.

There remains some debate as to when and how this capability might be implemented by the National Children's Digital Health Collaborative (NCDHC), i.e. via direct connection to the Department of Human Services (DHS) operated Australian Immunisation Register (AIR) or via the information stored in the My Health Record.


Comments:

I note that use case 2 only specifies the ability to view and add information.  There is no ability mentioned for providers or consumers to download/store or otherwise use/combine the information for value add purposes – not even on their own phones or desktops.  Is this an oversight? Or deliberate?
Posted by cath.resnick at 26 Jun, 2018 13:01