NEHTA Is Now Failing In Its Core Task. They Are Withdrawing Issue Ridden Specifications After Announcing Them As Final Ages Ago!

In December 2010 NEHTA released its final specification for Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions Version 1.1

This specification was to be run through the Standards Australia IT-14 Committee to be endorsed as an Australian Standard.

Essentially this has failed to happen and NEHTA has now (14 months later)  produced a short 5 page update: Here is the key part of the first page:

Release Notification

Status Update

Electronic Transfer of Prescription 1.1

Final

Release Update: 27 February 2012 (Red is as document is presented showing how important it is I guess)

NEHTA published the Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) 1.1 Specification Release in December 2010. This specification was progressed as a candidate for the Standards Australia IT-014 Informatics Community process with a view to realising a series of connected, formal Australian Technical Specifications. NEHTA is committed to supporting this standards publication process, and notes that a number of changes to the specification have been collected from relevant industry, policy makers and service providers, and have been applied to the specification.

NEHTA advises interested parties that ETP Release 1.1 will be superseded by an incremented release in mid-2012 and ETP Release 1.1 is now for information purposes only.

This Release Notification Status Update provides a broader communication as to the status of this Specification. Interested parties should contact NEHTA through the contact details at the end of this document should they wish to develop solutions based on ETP specifications.

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On page 4 (of 5) we find the following:

Known Issues

NEHTA has identified the following open issues affecting the release:

• These specifications will be updated based on feedback through Standards Australia and are considered “for information only”. A future release expected in Mid 2012 will incorporate the this feedback.
• The documents numbered 10 to 13 in the above list are platform-specific technical documents and have not yet been validated through live implementations in commercial clinical systems. For this reason the documents are identified as “Draft for trial implementation”. NEHTA will work with early implementers to offer support and contribute to validation of these technical documents.
• The release specifies the National Authentication System for Health (NASH) as the mechanism for the provision and management of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates for mutual authentication and also message encryption and signing. At the time of the release, NASH is still in development, but is scheduled to be available to early implementers.
• The release does not specify the technical mechanisms for document authors to digitally sign Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) documents. NEHTA is closely monitoring current national and international standards efforts to reach consensus on a CDA signing approach. NEHTA will work with Standards Australia and early implementers to finalise this mechanism.
• The release does not specify the credentials used by document authors to digitally sign ETP documents. NEHTA continues to work with clinical stakeholders to reach agreement on and obtain Commonwealth, state and territory approvals of the credentials required for the digital signing of ETP documents. It is expected that the approved credentials will be based upon individual Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) certificates managed by the NASH.
• The release does not specify the technical mechanisms for the submission of electronic prescriptions to Medicare Australia for PBS claim verification and audit, nor the technical mechanism for healthcare recipients to digitally sign for the receipt of PBS medications. NEHTA continues to work with Medicare Australia to specify these mechanisms.

Feedback

NEHTA continues to welcome feedback on the ETP package, which can be emailed to  medication.management@nehta.gov.au as can any questions relating to this package. Priority areas for feedback include errors of omission or commission, and issues that would adversely impact consumer choice and the timely provision of prescription and/or dispensed medication information.

Specification Development and Implementation

With the release of this final package, NEHTA’s ETP-related stakeholder engagement will turn to the development of guidance for the implementation and use of the ETP solution along with compliance, conformance and governance. NEHTA will also be actively seeking implementation partnerships.

The next release of ETP is expected mid-2012 and is being developed in concert with Standards Australia (IT 14-06-04 Working Group).

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The full document can be found here:

http://www.nehta.gov.au/component/docman/doc_download/1427-02-etp-release-notification-status-update

What an amazing farce we have here. NEHTA and DoHA have known for ages that this specification was not fit for use and from other sources I have heard much of the concern and angst in the SA Committees about this and the associated pressure for delivery.

Who knows just why the Version 1.1 was left out there as final for so long. I guess they were busily working behind the scenes to get it fixed and just now realised they should say something. Another theory goes there was a DoHA payment due and NEHTA needed a deliverable. Don't you love conspiracy theories - I have heard this one from a few sources however.
Of course we also do have a HL7 V2 spec which is pretty widely used and which is probably also being updated. It is simpler and probably much more useable.
The MSIA have also known for a while the new NEHTA specs were not fit for use and mentioned that in one of their submissions.
I just hope no one has spent any money trying to implement the new one. Clearly NEHTA needs to utterly revamp the way it goes about the delivery of specifications such as this to ensure this sort of nonsense is not repeated. Essentially this is another 14 months wasted in a major and important application area.

David.