A national consortium of health organisations has pushed the button on an innovative secure messaging delivery system in the Northern Territory which aligns with emerging national e-health standards.
The system, known as the Web Services Messaging Application or WSMA, uses new web-services technologies to send health information between different clinical software systems. It is based on a first-generation messaging specification, drafted by the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) in 2009, which is the front-runner to a national specification for secure messaging delivery currently pending release.
Sponsored by the Northern Territory Department of Health and Families (DHF), with software developed by local IT firm Diverse Systems Consulting, the project has been a joint initiative of the NEHTA, General Practice Network NT, and commercial software vendors Communicare Systems and PEN Computer Systems. The new system is part of the Northern Territory’s ongoing program of e-health innovation aimed at improving clinical information exchange and service delivery, particularly for patients in remote areas.
The WSMA application is designed to securely and efficiently transfer thousands of electronic messages a day containing critical healthcare information used to update the records of approximately 40,000 people who have already registered for the Northern Territory’s eHealthNT Shared Electronic Health Record service.
Under a self-assessment process, a Declaration of Conformance was issued to affirm WSMA’s compliance with NEHTA draft specifications. Future WSMA releases are expected to undergo formal testing under a new national software conformance assessment scheme, specifications for which will shortly be released by NEHTA for industry comment.
Integrated within the established clinical software packages offered by PEN and Communicare, WSMA will be used in most of the Territory’s Aboriginal community-controlled health clinics, public hospitals and a growing number of urban general practices.
NT DHF Chief Information Officer Stephen Moo said that, through its eHealthNT program, the Territory was committed to building state-of-the-art e-health solutions in line with NEHTA standards.
Design work has already commenced for the next generation of WSMA to be commissioned once the final NEHTA specification has been released. Future plans include developing NEHTA-compliant eReferrals and eDischarge summaries, enabling clinical information exchange between healthcare providers in the Northern Territory and providers in South Australia and Western Australia.
Test messages have already been successfully sent from SA Health systems to NT DHF systems demonstrating the e-health vision in action with information flowing seamlessly between interoperable systems in conformance with a national standard.