eHealth

In 2010 the Australian Government passed a law relating to e-health, which aims to improve information exchange, sharing and management in the Australian health sector. It is a move away from paper-based systems towards electronic access, transmission and recording of health information.

Healthcare Identifiers

Three types of healthcare identifier numbers were introduced to support the new law:

• Individual Healthcare Identifier (IHI) - for individuals receiving healthcare services.
• Healthcare Provider Identifier-Individual (HPI-I) - for healthcare providers and other health personnel involved in providing patient care. This number is allocated by Medicare and is different from the national registration number issued by Ahpra.
• Healthcare Provider Identifier-Organisation (HPI-O) - for organisations that deliver healthcare (such as hospitals or medical practices).   

Ahpra issues an HPI-I to every registered practitioner in the National Scheme. You can access your HPI-I number by logging into Ahpra’s online portal.

When practitioners communicate with other healthcare professionals involved in the care of a patient (such as a specialist, hospital or pathology lab) they will send the IHI with that communication, as well as their own HPI-I and HPI-O. If the receiving provider also uses the identifiers, then they can rely on the number to identify the patient and the other provider.

Medicare Australia operates the Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service. Healthcare providers can obtain the Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHIs) of their patients from Medicare Australia.

For more information about the HI Service including information about HPI-I, visit the Medicare website.