An Important Release of Information from the U.S.

Late last week the Markle Foundation released its so called "Common Framework" for Secure Health Information Sharing. This framework offers Policy approaches to the protection of private health information and Technical approaches the effective and timely sharing of relevant information.

Importantly the "Common Framework" is not a pie in the sky specification but is a demonstrated set of policies and technology which has been shown to work between 3 major sites in Boston, Indiana and California.

The importance of these demonstrations ought not be underestimated - especially as it has been achieved in a standardised conventional way and the two special pieces of software developed to enable the information sharing have been made available in open source form.

With NEHTA saying they have a three year window in which to develop the required standards for Australia it seems clear the work Markle has done needs to be carefully reviewed here. It is interesting that the approach adopted is web services based - as is being recommended by NEHTA for Australia.

It is also important to note this US initiative has avoided any need for a universal patient identifier of the sort now under development - in some form - by NEHTA.

However, it is important to recognise that care is required with the wholesale adoption of Web Services approaches - as is made clear in a recent Computerworld article entitled "Researcher: Web services security risks largely ignored".

Secure and safe sharing of clinical information is a key to safe health services delivery. I hope the work done in the U.S. can help speed up the progress in Australia.

David