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45 minutes |
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2 hours |
Quick intro
My Health Record is a secure online summary of an individual’s health information and is available to all Australians. Healthcare providers authorised by their healthcare organisation can access My Health Record to view and add patient health information.
Through the My Health Record system clinicians can access timely information about their patients such as shared health summaries, discharge summaries, prescription and dispense records, pathology reports and diagnostic imaging reports.
In this tutorial, you will;
- Understand high level concepts regarding the HI Service and My Health Record system
- Register as a developer for the HI Service and My Health Record system
- Request Test Certificates and Test Environment Data
- Install the Test Certificates locally
- Import Certificates in CIS Software
Important!
This guide is currently only available in C#. If you are using other languages/platforms you may still find the content relevant although you will need to adapt it to suit your environment.
Healthcare Identifier Service (HI Service)
Before connecting to the My Health Record system using the B2B Gateway, the software must first be able to identify the three participants in a healthcare event; the patient, the healthcare provider individual, and the healthcare provider organisation. The HI Service stores identifiers for these three participants. The HI Service Business to Business (B2B) Gateway exposes SOAP based web services which allow your software to search for identifiers for these parties.
The HI Service is a national system for uniquely identifying individuals, healthcare provider individuals and healthcare provider organisations. Healthcare Identifiers allow us to have confidence that the correct information is associated with the correct individual at the point of care.
The HI Service consists of 3 types of identifiers;
- Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI), assigned to Healthcare consumers. Every Australian with a Medicare Card or Department of Veteran’s Affairs (DVA) card has automatically been assigned an IHI.
- Healthcare Provider Identifier–Individual - (HPI-I), assigned to Healthcare providers, I.e. a GP, Pharmacist, Nurse or Psychiatrist. Every healthcare provider registered with AHPRA has automatically been assigned an HPI-I. Some healthcare providers who aren’t AHPRA registered are eligible to apply for an HPI-I.
- Healthcare Provider Identifier–Organisation (HPI-O), assigned to organisations such as General Practices, Pharmacies and Hospitals. Healthcare provider organisations must register for an HPI-O.
The My Health Record system
Once you have connected your software to the HI Service, you can then connect to the My Health Record system via the My Health Record Business to Business (B2B) Gateway. The My Health Record B2B Gateway provides a way to include My Health Record functionality natively within your software.
Registration Overview
My Health Record integration is typically done in two steps. Connecting to the HI Service and the My Health Record system. Before you start your development, you will need to have completed the:
- HI Service Developer Registration and the
- My Health Record Developer Registration (Details below)
It is useful to note that most of the steps for developer registration and accessing materials are done via Services Australia and their Health Systems Developer Portal, which you may be familiar with if you leverage the Medicare Online APIs. Most of the steps for accessing materials for My Health Record are done via the Australian Digital Health Agency and our Developer Centre (this website).
Important!
Start both of these registrations now as there will be some turnaround time for responses and you will need test certificates to begin development.
Webinar recording
If you are looking to integrate your software with the My Health Record system, the Australian Digital Health Agency will be providing an introduction to integrating software with the My Health Record system via a one hour webinar recording.
HI Service Developer Registration
To gain access to the HI Service Software Vendor Test (SVT) Environment you will need to register on the Health Systems Developer Portal provided by Services Australia. This portal will be your gateway to developer resources for the HI Service. The portal is a secure platform and you will need to register your organisation to access it. You will need to be an authorised officer of your organisation and have an Individual Provider Digital Access (PRODA) account before you can register your organisation in the portal. Registering for a PRODA account takes 10 minutes if you do not already have it. Follow the steps below to register for PRODA, accept the Interface Agreement, access the API documentation (referred to as the Licenced Material), and access the HI Service SVT to begin your product development and testing.
1. Create an Individual PRODA account. This step requires 3 forms of identity documents. For most users the easiest are a Passport, Drivers Licence, and Medicare card. This process should take about 10 minutes. If you have any issues with your identification and cannot progress (such as discrepancies between maiden names, middle names, etc.) you will need to manually submit your identification using this form: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/organisations/health-professionals/forms/hw080. Contact the PRODA support line for additional help: 1800 700 199 and select Option 1.
2. Once your PRODA account is created, go to the Health Systems Developer Portal and register your organisation. You will need the PRODA RA number which was sent to you from step 1 above. If you cannot find your PRODA RA number you can login to your PRODA Account, select Profile and your RA Number will be visible. Note that the Health Systems Developer Portal does not have a link from the PRODA landing page, you must use the Health Systems Developer Portal link to login. This process should take less than 20 minutes and you will need to be an authorised officer of your organisation to register. If your organisation is already registered your authorised officer will be able to grant access to additional users.
3. Once you are registered for the Health Systems Developer Portal you will be sent an email with your security credentials, you can use these to login to the portal. Registration submissions require manual review and you may not receive confirmation immediately. Continue on to My Health Record Developer Registration below and return to these steps once you are granted access.
4. When you first login you will accept the Interface Agreement before you can access the HI Service licensed material. Once you have accepted the Interface Agreement you will have access to the Certification tile. Follow the steps below to progress your registration.
1. Click View Certification on the Certification tile
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on Create HI application
3. Fill in all mandatory fields on the Notice of Connection online form and press Submit
Services Australia will contact you to discuss your requirements and ask you for your software name and version number so that they can register your software product in the HI SVT environment. You will advise them that you are connecting to the HI Service (and the My Health Record system if required). They will then generate your testing certificates.
5. Once you retrieve access, download the relevant Healthcare Identifiers documentation. The HI licensed material contains approximately 40 documents for developers interested in creating products which connect to the HI Service. It is unlikely that you will need to read all these documents. We recommend that you briefly familiarise yourself with the following 2 documents, we will refer to them as needed throughout these developer guides.
- HI Service - Developers Guide
- HI Service - IHI Searching Guide
Most of the other documents each relate specifically to an individual web service of the HI Service. Most developers will only be interested in a subset of these services, so will only require the documents relevant to the services of interest.
6. If you have advised Services Australia that you are developing for the My Health Record system then they will not issue certificates until they receive your NASH Test Certificate Request Form as per the steps in My Health Record Developer Registration below.
My Health Record Developer Registration
- Download the My Health Record Software Vendor Welcome Pack (for initial product connection). You will only need the following file to begin with: Vendor Product Details Form.
To complete the form you will need to understand some basic aspects of the functionality you are developing including which web services you will access, which clinical document types you will upload, and which views you will display to the user. We will discuss development scope briefly below, for the time being familiarise yourself with the rest of the form.
- Download the Application to Request a National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Test Certificate form which is a request for the test certificates required to access the My Health Record Software Vendor Test (SVT) Environment (NASH Test Certificates) and the HI Service SVT. Complete this form now and send it to [email protected] informing them that you are wishing to register your product for connection with the My Health Record system (or are implementing enhancements to your connected product). If you have already completed the form in step 1 then you can include that also. It may take a few days for NASH Test Certificates to be issued.
- Once you have received your NASH Test Certificates you will then be ready to setup your environment as per the steps below and run your first code (in our next developer guide).
HI Service Development Scope
When developing to connect to the HI Service it is important to consider what functionality you will be building. These developer guides focus on important functionality and Use Cases.
We will show you how to retrieve an IHI using patient demographics (IHI Lookup) and how to retrieve a healthcare provider individual's HPI-I using their AHPRA number and name.
The HI Service provides additional functionality including the ability to find HPI-Os. For a complete list you can review HI Service Use Cases
My Health Record Development Scope
To register as a My Health Record developer using the Vendor Product Details Form mentioned above you will need to understand what you wish to build. Every software vendor may wish to build something slightly different. Your scope can change during development and the completed form is just used by the Agency as a guide to assist you. Continue reading for help to complete question 10. Supported web services on the form.
The first item to consider is whether your users will need to contribute (upload) to the My Health Record or just view content. Most developers would incorporate functionality for both. When viewing content will your users only need to download clinical documents or would you like to display My Health Record Views. My Health Record Views provide an easy way to display consolidated clinical information such as a Prescription & Dispense View. It is recommended to incorporate My Health Record Views.
| Web Service | For Viewing MHR Content |
For displaying MHR Views |
For uploading |
|---|---|---|---|
|
DoesPCEHRExist |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
GainPCEHRAccess |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
ITI-41 Provide & Register Document Set - b |
Yes |
||
|
RemoveDocument/DeregisterDocument |
Yes |
||
|
ITI-43 Retrieve Document Set |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
ITI-18 Register Stored Query |
Yes |
Yes |
|
|
Register PCEHR |
|||
|
CIStoNPP * |
|||
|
GetChangeHistoryView |
|||
|
GetAuditView |
|||
|
GetRepresentativeListView |
|||
|
GetIndividualDetailsView |
|||
|
getView |
Yes |
||
|
SearchTemplate |
|||
|
GetTemplate |
* If your users are only interested in viewing My Health Record content, you may wish to use the CIS to NPP connection method. Other limitations apply. More information can be found here: https://developer.digitalhealth.gov.au/specifications/national-infrastructure/ep-2876-2019
Question 14.2 asks which types of clinical documents your system will upload to the My Health Record system. The table below gives some high-level advice as to which clinical documents may be relevant for your system based on the sector of your users. For further information you may wish to read more information about each clinical document type by clicking the link.
✓✓ Highly Recommended ✓ Recommended
| Uploading | GP | Pharmacy | Pathology | Diagnostic Imaging |
Allied Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared Health Summary | ✓✓ | ||||
| Event Summary | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ | ||
| eHealth Prescription Record | ✓✓ | ||||
| eHealth Dispense Record | ✓✓ | ||||
| eHealth Pathology Report | ✓✓ | ||||
| eHealth Diagnostic Imaging Report | ✓✓ |
| Viewing | GP | Pharmacy | Pathology | Diagnostic Imaging |
Allied Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health Record Overview | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Medicare Overview | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ |
| eHealth Pathology Report View | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ |
| eHealth Diagnostic Imaging Report View | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ | ✓✓ |
| eHealth Prescription & Dispense View | ✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ |
| eHealth Medicines View ** | ✓✓ | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ |
** The eHealth Medicines View is not a document that is uploaded by clinical information software. It can only be downloaded via the document list.
Conformance Testing
To finalize your development and gain access to the HI Service and My Health Record system production environments you will need to undergo testing.
For the HI Service you will undergo Notice of Connection (NoC) testing and Conformance testing. The process is described on this page: https://developer.digitalhealth.gov.au/resources/faqs/hi-test-and-go-live
Important
When you are ready to conduct your HI Service Conformance testing you will need to submit a completed Implementation Conformance Statement Proforma form. Please familiarise yourself with this document now, for completion at a later date. This document contains a wealth of information about the HI Service web services, use cases and requirements.
For the My Health Record system you will undergo Notice of Connection (NoC) testing and Conformance & Compliance Declaration (CCD) which is a self-assessment of your adherence to the requirements. The process is stepped out here: https://developer.digitalhealth.gov.au/resources/faqs/my-health-record-notice-connection-noc-and-conformance-compliance-and-declaration-ccd-testing
Once you have submitted your requests for certificates for the SVT environments, and are awaiting your certificates to proceed, you should return to this section and read both of these pages.
So in total you will conduct 4 separate test activities.
Certificate Setup
Within a few days you will receive your NASH Test Certificates and test data for the HI Service and My Health Record system and can begin building your implementation by connecting to the Software Vendor Test (SVT) Environments. It may be useful to note that up until 2019, separate certificates were required for the HI Service (Medicare Site Certificates) and My Health Record (NASH Certificates). This mechanism has now been improved and you will be able to use your NASH Certificates for both services.
Setup NASH CA certificates on a Windows environment
1. Unzip the certificates zip file to extract all of the certificate files. Your ZIP file will look similar to the screenshot below.
2. First we will install the Certificate Authority (CA) certificates. In the screenshot above these are tmaoca.crt and tmarca.crt. Install each CA certificate following the steps below.
a. Double click on the CA certificate, the installation window will appear.
b. Click Next and select the Place all certificates in the following store option.
c. Click Browse… and choose Trusted Root Certification Authorities as the Certificate Store.
d. Click next and finish installation.
3. Repeat step 2 to install each certificate.
Setup NASH Organisation certificate (Personal Information Exchange)
1. Install the NASH private key certificate (typically named fac_sign.p12 file) by double clicking the file.
2. Click Next and enter the Password for private key provided by Services Australia.
3. Click Next and select the Place all certificates in the following store option.
4. Click Browse… and choose Personal for certificate store and click OK.
5. Click next and finish installation.
Find the Certificate Serial Number
To connect to the HI Service and My Health Record system you will need a certificate for TLS and signing the Header. To identify the certificate to use in your code, you will need the serial number of the certificate. Follow the steps below to retrieve the serial number.
1. Go to Manage User Certificates from the Windows Start Menu.
2. Navigate to Personal -> Certificates to verify that the certificate is installed.
3. Double click on the certificate to view the details.
4. In the Details tab, you can find the Certificate Serial number required in developer guides.
Code sample to load the certificate
We have provided the following code below which can be reused for loading the certificate when required. This code sample will be provided again when required in our next guide.
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
X509Certificate2 cert = X509CertificateUtil.GetCertificate(
Certificate_Serial,
X509FindType.FindBySerialNumber,
StoreName.My,
StoreLocation.CurrentUser,
true);
return cert;
}User production Certificates in your software
The steps above will prepare your development environment to connect to the SVT environments. Your users however will receive production environment certificates and you will likely want to simplify the way which they load these certificates into your software.
If you already connect to Medicare APIs then you will likely already have a UI screen which allows the user to load certificates. You may want to leverage this same process to allow them to load their NASH certificates. If you do not already have functionality to load production certificates via your UI you will want to investigate this.
Important!
The CA certificates for production environments are different from the SVT. Therefore you will need to install production CA certificates for your users. These certificates can be found at https://www.certificates-australia.com.au/.
Conclusion
You should now be familiar with the HI Service and My Health Record system. You should be registered as a developer for both environments and have your local development environment set up with certificates. You should also understand the scope of your development and be familiar at a high level with your testing obligations.
In the next guide we will begin our first calls to the HI Service web services.