AlayaCare has become the first organisation to implement the Australian Digital Health Agency’s new HIPS HealthViewer, as work gets underway to extend access to the technology across jurisdictions and private hospitals.
The Agency has revealed it is also partnering with Epic and ACT Health’s Digital Canberra program on a SMART on FHIR capability that will allow the HealthViewer to be launched from within clinical systems in the context of an individual patient.
The developments were revealed in the Agency’s Connected Care Update, presented to software developers, healthcare organisations and implementation partners in Sydney earlier this month.
HIPS, or the Healthcare Information Provider Service, provides an interface between healthcare organisations and the My Health Record system.
The Agency released HIPS version 9.1 in May, supporting the new HealthViewer and deprecating the previous HIPS user interface.
According to the Agency, AlayaCare became the first implementation of HealthViewer this year, while work is underway to uplift viewers used by jurisdictions and private hospitals.
AlayaCare provides cloud-based software used by home and community care organisations across the aged and community care sector.
A further HealthViewer 1.2 release is planned for 2026, subject to confirmation, with minor user interface and user experience enhancements and support for Smart Launch.
Smart Launch forms part of the SMART on FHIR specification and is intended to provide a vendor-agnostic and secure way of launching applications in the context of a patient.
ACT Health uses an Epic-based Digital Health Record across Canberra’s public health system, including Canberra Hospital, North Canberra Hospital, community health centres and walk-in centres.
The Agency will demonstrate a proof of concept at the HL7 Australia FHIR Connectathon in Brisbane later this month, testing integration between clinical systems and HealthViewer using Smart App Launch.
The Connected Care Update also provided new figures on the use of HIPS to access My Health Record.
In June 2026, HIPS accounted for 18 million, or 42 per cent, of clinical document uploads to My Health Record and nine million -around half of all document views.
Across the six years to June 2026, HIPS accounted for 715 million uploads and 260 million views, representing 35 per cent and 45 per cent respectively of the totals.
The Agency said HIPS uploads had increased from more than 20 million in 2020 to almost 185 million in 2025, while views increased from almost three million to 83 million over the same period.
Older versions of HIPS are also being progressively retired. Version 6.x is scheduled to be sunset on March 31, 2027, versions 7.x through to 8.2.1 on August 31, and versions 8.3.0 and 8.3.1 on November 30.
The Agency is separately exploring a future redesign of its My Health Record consumer and provider portals, although it stressed the concepts presented at the Connected Care Update were not confirmed features.
The concepts include patient timelines, shared care plans supporting multidisciplinary teams, consumer health profiles and patient summaries, and new approaches to displaying results and medicines.
The Agency said its longer-term aim was to provide clinicians with faster access to My Health Record within their existing care context, while automating contributions to the record and reducing the burden associated with uploading and maintaining information.
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