The Australian Digital Health Agency is upgrading Australia’s digital health platform to ensure it continues to meet the needs of Australians into the future.
The first key upgrade is a new Health API Gateway that will provide a secure and scalable digital platform for exchanging and accessing health information. It will be a key enabler of the Agency’s work to create a collaborative environment to accelerate adoption and use of innovative digital services and technologies. It’s the first step in achieving a future where digital health is in broad use.
The current gateway (Oracle API gateway) is being decommissioned and the new Health API Gateway Services will constitute a standalone, contemporary capability to provide services for the My Health Record system that can be extended to support the infrastructure in the national digital health infrastructure and broader future state concept.
Services will be consumed by clinical systems, web portals and mobile apps developed by the Agency and software vendors in support of consumer and provider applications.
Implementation approach
Development work is well underway to deliver the Health API Gateway, API build and service management and operational support model.
Changes will occur iteratively throughout the project, with no disruption to existing connections to digital health infrastructure or services. Service quality and availability will be maintained.
The focus is on like-for-like migration of current APIs to minimise change impact on API consumers. This will also include preparation for transition of support services to the target support operating model for migrated APIs,
Timeframe for delivery
The new Health API Gateway will be delivered in three stages:
Bundle 1: MDS (Medicare) – Delivered March 2022
This has no impact on software developers that connect to national infrastructure.
Bundle 2: FHIR mobile gateway – Delivered September 2022
We will work directly with mobile developers to minimise impacts on their mobile app customers.
There is no impact on HIPS mobile for this bundle.
Bundle 3: B2B Gateway – Starting 17 November 2022
The final steps to move from the current Oracle API Gateway to the new Health API Gateway, which facilitates connections to My Health Record, will go into production as a staged process nationwide, beginning 17 November. We anticipate the full rollout will take 2-3 weeks.
Thank you to all those vendors who have already completed testing in the Software Vendor Test (SVT) environment. If you are one of the few who have not yet done so, we highly recommend you do this as a priority, so that your customers continue to experience seamless connection to My Health Record.
The release notes explain some of the issues we have addressed during testing.
All functionality of the API Gateway production environment will remain available during deployment, and we do not anticipate any downtime.
Contact details
For questions about testing or connection issues, email [email protected] or call 1300 901 001 (8am to 5pm AEST/AEDT) Monday to Friday.
If a consumer or healthcare provider needs assistance, they can call the Help line on 1800 723 471 (available 24 hours, 7 days a week).
