Life-Cycle of a Health Organisation Connecting to the National Digital Health Ecosystem

Introduction

This case study describes the typical life cycle that a health organisation will adopt in the course of connecting and contributing to the national digital health ecosystem. It also highlights where Chamonix provides services to the healthcare organisation directly or indirectly via the Australian Government.

Solution

Healthcare organisations, such as public health services, private hospitals, public and private pathology labs, diagnostic imaging facilities, and aged care facilities, often need to contribute to the national digital health ecosystem to share clinical information with other providers and consumers. There are three main choices for these organisations:

• Their clinical applications may already have the ability to connect to the national systems.
• They may need to make changes to their clinical applications to connect to the national systems, which is a substantial undertaking.
• They may choose to integrate their clinical applications with a ready-made middleware product (owned by the Government), which connects to the national systems on their behalf.

Chamonix assists with the third choice by providing integration services. The middleware product, built by Chamonix and owned by the Government, has extensive documentation available on the Government’s website. Healthcare organisations can access this information, download the product, and start investigating its use.

Implementation

If a healthcare organisation decides to proceed with the middleware product, they are usually assigned a Government architect. In some cases, Chamonix provides direct assistance, especially for new types of organisations such as pathology and diagnostic imaging facilities. If Chamonix is not working directly with the healthcare organisation, their integration staff will provide expertise to the Government architects.

Integration with the national systems is complex and requires specialist knowledge, which Chamonix can provide directly or via the Government. The integration process typically involves making software changes to clinical systems and/or changes to the integration engine, which connects systems and handles communication protocols. The integration engine also ensures no messages are lost and that they are passed in the correct sequence. All these details are provided to the healthcare organisation during the analysis and development phase.

Testing Phases

Once the integration changes have been developed, a rigorous testing phase follows. Chamonix provides expert analysis and advice to address unusual scenarios and edge cases. The testing phases include:

• System Testing
• Integration Testing
• Compliance Testing
• User Acceptance Testing

Compliance testing requires the healthcare organisation to demonstrate that their clinical documents conform to compliance requirements. They cannot connect to the national systems until they pass all necessary compliance and conformance testing and receive approval from the National System Operator.

Go-Live and Support

Once approved, the healthcare organisation can go live with the solution and the middleware product. Chamonix provides a support service that allows healthcare organisations to raise support tickets for incident resolution or queries. This support service is available to sites nominated by the Government.

Chamonix has also developed a knowledge portal using the Kentico application, providing solutions to common issues. Access to this portal is granted to sites nominated by the Government.

From time to time, Chamonix may be asked to make changes to the middleware product, either arranged via the Government for future releases or through a commercial arrangement with a healthcare organisation directly.

Summary

The life cycle of a healthcare organisation connecting to the national digital health ecosystem can take many months and is complex. Chamonix provides the skill and expertise to assist healthcare organisations either directly or via Government departments. Once testing begins, Chamonix offers ongoing support, continuing even after the healthcare organisation goes live with their solution. Chamonix has supported healthcare organisations for over 7 years.

Business Benefits

• Provides expertise on conformance requirements
• Helps select the best option for system integration
• Offers production support services
• Reduces time and effort for integration with internal systems