AU Patient Summary Implementation Guide
0.2.0-preview - Preview

AU Patient Summary Implementation Guide - Local Development build (v0.2.0-preview) built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) Build Tools. See the Directory of published versions

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Official URL: http://hl7.org.au/fhir/ps/ImplementationGuide/hl7.fhir.au.ps | Version: 0.2.0-preview
IG Standards status: Draft | Maturity Level: 0 | Computable Name: AUPatientSummaryImplementationGuide
Copyright/Legal: Used by permission of HL7 International, all rights reserved Creative Commons License. HL7 Australia© 2022+; Licensed Under Creative Commons No Rights Reserved.

#### AU Patient Summary 0.2.0-preview for testing

This June 2025 preview snapshot supports testing of AU Patient Summary prior to Ballot of AU Patient Summary R1.

Testing plays a crucial role in the development of AU Patient Summary. It helps to build an AU Patient Summary that is aligned with its intended purpose and is practical, and responsive to the diverse needs of various stakeholders.

Testing AU Patient Summary helps identify issues, challenges, or gaps in the specification, enabling its improvement. During testing, implementers test their FHIR resources, software products, and/or proof of concepts with AU Patient Summary and provide essential feedback.

To learn more about testing AU Patient Summary or express your interest in participating, see AU Patient Summary FHIR IG Testing.

### Introduction

AU Patient Summary is provided to support the use of patient summaries in HL7® FHIR®© in an Australian context. It complies with the requirements defined in IPS and AU Core, and sets the minimum expectations on FHIR resources to support conformance and implementation in systems.

A Patient Summary is:

- a health record extract comprising a core set of digital health and administrative data elements that provide a snapshot in time of a subject of care’s health information and healthcare.
- designed for supporting use case scenarios including planned and unplanned care, continuity of care and transition of care.

AU Patient Summary will:

- be compliant with AU Core and IPS, localised to meet Australian requirements and aligned to the IPS specification.
- be easy to implement and support patient summary use case specialisation for clinical workflows without requiring redevelopment.

The first iteration of the AU PS will be based upon the IPS, but is NOT the IPS, allowing for localisations required to meet Australian requirements while ensuring alignment to the IPS specification.

#### What is a patient summary?

A patient summary is a standardised collection of patient information. Rather than an entire patient health record, it is the necessary minimum and sufficient data to ensure safe patient care. Patient summaries can enhance patient safety by ensuring critical information is readily accessible when it’s needed most and enables clinicians across different health sectors and health domains to provide more informed, consistent care.

The AU Patient Summary will support the consumer on their healthcare journey, providing the consumer and their healthcare providers with timely and current access to relevant health information. It will provide a future pathway for individuals to share their healthcare information when travelling internationally.

#### International Patient Summary

The International Patient Summary is a globally recognised patient summary standard. In 2021, the G7 nations committed to working towards the adoption of the International Patient Summary (IPS) with several international efforts being currently underway to drive adoption, including the European Union, USA, Canada and New Zealand. Multinational vendors with presence in Australia are at various stages of implementation of the IPS.

### Project background

This implementation guide is under development through the AU Patient Summary FHIR IG project as part of the Sparked AU FHIR Accelerator.

The Sparked AU FHIR Accelerator is a community comprising government, technology vendors, provider organisations, peak bodies, practitioners, and domain experts, to accelerate the creation and use of national FHIR standards in health care information exchange.

#### AU Patient Summary Development Context

Figure 1: AU Patient Summary Development Context

The Sparked Clinical Design Group has begun identifying a set of core data groups and elements considered important for a minimal patient summary for inclusion in the AUCDI through an iterative process.

Additionally, a Patient Summary Clinical Focus Group (CFG), a sub-group of the Clinical Design Group, will develop the clinical scenarios and clinical workflow processes to support the development of the AUCDI and AU PS IG.

Supported by the PS CFG, the AU PS Project Team will develop a set of technical use cases and define the rules about how FHIR resources are used to deliver Australia Patient Summaries, with associated documentation to support and clarify usage. Success of this project will depend on active participation from members of the community who are looking to implement a patient summary capability in FHIR, whether you have already expressed your interest or are new to considering the AU Patient Summary project please complete this Registration form or email Sparked@csiro.au to actively contribute to the development of the AU Patient Summary FHIR IG.

### Dependencies

IG | Package | FHIR | Comment
--- | --- | --- | ---
AU Patient Summary Implementation Guide | hl7.fhir.au.ps#0.2.0-preview | R4 |
HL7 Terminology (THO) | hl7.terminology.r4#6.4.0 | R4 | Automatically added as a dependency - all IGs depend on HL7 Terminology
FHIR Extensions Pack | hl7.fhir.uv.extensions.r4#5.2.0 | R4 |
International Patient Summary Implementation Guide | hl7.fhir.uv.ips#current | R4 |
AU Core Implementation Guide | hl7.fhir.au.core#2.0.0-draft | R4 |
AU Base Implementation Guide | hl7.fhir.au.base#6.0.0-draft | R4 |
SMART App Launch | hl7.fhir.uv.smart-app-launch#2.1.0 | R4 |
HL7 Terminology (THO) | hl7.terminology.r4#5.0.0 | R4 |
International Patient Access | hl7.fhir.uv.ipa#1.1.0 | R4 |
HL7 Terminology (THO) | hl7.terminology.r4#6.2.0 | R4 |
SMART App Launch | hl7.fhir.uv.smart-app-launch#2.0.0 | R4 |

Package hl7.fhir.uv.extensions.r4#5.2.0 This IG defines the global extensions - the ones defined for everyone. These extensions are always in scope wherever FHIR is being used (built Mon, Feb 10, 2025 21:45+1100+11:00)

Package hl7.fhir.au.base#6.0.0-draft This implementation guide is provided to support the use of FHIR®© in an Australian context. (built Sun, Jun 15, 2025 07:39+0000+00:00)

Package hl7.fhir.uv.ipa#1.1.0 This IG describes how an application acting on behalf of a patient can access information about the patient from an clinical records system using a FHIR based API. The clinical records system may be supporting a clinical care provider (e.g. a hospital, or a general practitioner), or a health data exchange, including a national health record system. (built Wed, Mar 19, 2025 14:34+0000+00:00)

Package hl7.fhir.au.core#2.0.0-draft This implementation guide is provided to support the use of FHIR®© in an Australian context, and defines the minimum set of constraints on the FHIR resources to create the AU Core profiles. This implementation guide forms the foundation to build future AU Realm FHIR implementation guides and its content will continue to grow to meet the needs of AU implementers. (built Mon, Jun 16, 2025 05:29+0000+00:00)

### How to read this guide

This guide is divided into several pages which are listed at the top of each page in the menu bar.

- Home: This page provides the introduction and scope for this guide.
- Conformance: These pages describe the set of rules to claim conformance to this guide including the expectations for Must Support elements in AU PS profiles.
  - General Requirements: This page defines requirements common to profiles used in this guide including the expectations for mandatory and Must Support elements in AU PS profiles.
  - Declaring Conformance: This page describes how to declare conformance to AU PS.
- Guidance: These pages list the guidance for this guide.
  - General Guidance: This page provides guidance on using the profiles defined in this guide.
  - Sex and Gender: This page provides guidance on the representation of sex, gender, and related concepts.
  - AUCDI: This page maps AUCDI data groups and elements to FHIR artefacts in AU Patient Summary.
  - Relationship with other IGs: This page provides guidance on the relationship between AU Patient Summary, AUCDI, and other implementation guides.
  - AU Variance Statement: This page documents the variance from AU Base and AU Core.
  - Comparison with other national and international IGs: This page provides comparison between AU Patient Summary profiles and other national and international implementation guides.
  - Future of AU Patient Summary: This page outlines the approach to developing AU Patient Summary.
- Use Cases: These pages document a set of example use cases that assist in understanding how to implement AU Patient Summary.
  - Interstate GP Visit: This page documents the Interstate GP Visit - Patient Driven Patient Summary example use case.
  - Referral to Specialist and Allied Health: This page documents the Referral to Specialist and Allied Health - Clinician Driven Patient Summary (as Supplemental Information) example use case.
- Security and Privacy: This page documents the AU Patient Summary general security and privacy requirements and recommendations.
- FHIR Artefacts: These pages provide detailed descriptions and formal definitions for all the FHIR artefacts defined in this guide.
  - Artefacts Summary: This page lists the FHIR artefacts defined in this guide.
  - Profiles and Extensions: This page describes the profiles and extensions that are defined in this guide to exchange data. Each profile page includes a narrative description and guidance, and formal definition. Guidance typically focuses on the profiled elements but can include guidance on un-profiled elements to aid with implementation.
  - Terminology: This page lists the value sets and code systems supported in this guide.
- Examples: This page lists all the examples used in this guide.
- Support: These pages provide supporting material for implementation of AU Patient Summary.
  - Downloads: This page provides links to downloadable artefacts.
  - License and Legal: This page outlines the license and legal requirements for material in AU Patient Summary.

### Collaboration

This guide is the product of collaborative work undertaken with participants from:

- HL7 Australia AU Core Technical Design Group
- HL7 Australia FHIR Working Group
- Australian FHIR Implementers Community

Primary Editors: Brett Esler, Danielle Tavares-Rixon, Dusica Bojicic.