AU Patient Summary Implementation Guide
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AU Patient Summary Implementation Guide, published by HL7 Australia. This guide is not an authorized publication; it is the continuous build for version 0.5.0-cibuild built by the FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) CI Build. This version is based on the current content of https://github.com/hl7au/au-fhir-ps/ and changes regularly. See the Directory of published versions

Future of AU Patient Summary

Page standards status: Informative

AU Patient Summary (AU PS) R1 Target Release Time Frame

AU PS R1 (& AU Core R2) Target Release Timeline:

  • Intermediate draft snapshots from December 2024 and for each HL7 AU Connectathon
  • R1 Ballot for Comment in the August/September 2025 cycle
  • R1 Ballot for Working Standard in the February/March 2026 cycle, published by June 2026
  • Continued updates on a yearly / 18-monthly cycle from then on
AU Patient Summary R1 Target Release Time Frame

Figure 1: AU PS R1 target release time frame

Future updates of AU PS would reflect changes to:

  • AU Base
  • AUCDI (Patient summary)
  • AU Core
  • International Patient Summary
  • requests from the AU FHIR community

AU PS R1 Development Process

The first release of AU PS is an 18 month process from HL7 AU proposal to publication, outlined in the figure below:

AU Patient Summary R1 Development process

Figure 2: AU PS R1 development process

Maturing the Baseline

The approach to develop and mature AU PS is outlined in the figure below making reference to the Australian FHIR Maturity Level (AFMM) levels.

Maturing the AU Patient Summary Baseline

Figure 3: Maturing the AU PS baseline

Future Candidate Requirements Under Consideration

The following items are under consideration to add to AU PS.

  • Last Updated: AUCDI element Last Updated is intended to reflect when a data group was last updated, capturing clinical relevance and currency. A known and implemented solution in other jurisdictions for similar requirements is the use of the Provenance resource. An alternative to the use of Provenance may be the definition of custom extensions or meta.lastUpdated. Future versions of AU Core will develop and test approaches to addressing Last Updated. When defined in AU Core, it will be inherited by AU PS.
  • DocumentReference Profile: Future versions of AU Core will develop and test an AU Core DocumentReference profile to support sharing of clinical notes across multiple use cases to support common implementation. When defined in AU Core, the reference in AU PS Bundle will be updated to reference this profile.
  • Device Profiles: Use of the Device resource for medical devices, and devices that perform, observe, or author clinical data, are required to support multiple downstream use cases including eRequesting and patient summary. Future versions of AU Core will develop and test profiles to support common implementation of Device information. A potential outcome of this AU Core work is either a new AU PS profile or direct reference to the defined AU Core profile.
  • Additional Diagnostic Results Profiles: Additional AU Core profiles to support common implementation of additional aspects of diagnostic results including imaging, specimen, and reports are expected to be developed and tested in future versions of AU Core. Potential outcomes of this work in AU Core are additional AU PS profiles that describe how to comply with the AU Core and IPS requirements: AU PS Imaging Result Observation, AU PS ImagingStudy, AU PS Specimen, and AU PS DiagnosticReport.
  • Pregnancy Information Profiles: Exchange of pregnancy information is supported in AU PS via reference to IPS profiles. Additional AU Core profiles to support common implementation of widely shared pregnancy information including pregnancy assertion (sometimes referred to as pregnancy status), last menstrual period and estimated date of delivery are under consideration for a future release and may be developed and tested in future versions of AU Core. A potential outcomes of this AU Core work are additional AU PS profiles that describe how to comply with the AU Core and IPS requirements: AU PS Pregnancy Status and AU PS Pregnancy EDD.
  • AU PS profile policies and governance: Future versions of AU PS will make reference to policies and conventions for HL7 AU FHIR artefacts. Given the nature and scope of the work across all HL7 AU FHIR implementation guides, there is likely to be an HL7 AU project to develop the material and provide recommendations for enhancing HL7 AU Implementation Guides. This work will address related issues and ensure alignment with governance practices.