AUCDI, FHIR and AU Core

The primary intent of the AUCDI is to design and govern a collection of coherent, reusable building blocks known as ‘data groups’. These data groups specify “what” is necessary for clinical recording and documentation, data reuse, and health information exchange.  However, it does not specify “how” the data is exchanged; this is the role fulfilled by the FHIR standard.

FHIR is the next-generation HL7 standard for exchanging healthcare data electronically. It is based on the lessons learnt from the many years of developing previous HL7 standards for healthcare data exchange.

The basic building blocks of FHIR, Resources, can be tailored to suit specific use cases by “profiling”. Whilst FHIR is an international standard, national and regional projects can provide localisation of resources and profiles. HL7 Australia’s “AU Base” IG provides localised resources extensions in the Australian context. AU Core specifies minimum data element support and system behaviour capability for a system to record, update, search, and retrieve core health and administrative information.

AU Core FHIR IG has been developed in reference to the AUCDI, representing the core AUCDI data groups as FHIR artefacts. The Sparked HL7 AU Core Technical Design Group (AU Core TDG) has been tasked to design the AU Core FHIR IG under the governance framework of the HL7 AU Australian FHIR Management Framework.