Australia's Minister of Health, Nicola Roxon decided to herself visit offices of Medicare Australia across Canberra to gain first-hand observation of how a new and secure eHealth system would work to make things easier and faster for both patients and health care professionals.

Minister Roxon has now shared that her visit gave her the chance to determine just how useful tools like electronic health records, systems which undertake medication-management and electronic discharge, referrals and prescriptions, can be once completely put into practice. She stressed that the new eHealth system would effectively be able to improve patient care.

“The views of these key eHealth stakeholders are important as we consider the NHHRC recommendations and in developing strong foundations for Australia’s eHealth - such as unique ‘healthcare identifiers’ and secure messaging standards", said Ms. Roxon.

The Minister also confirmed that "unique healthcare identifiers" would be issued to all healthcare consumers and professionals by mid-2010, while encouraging all Australians to send in their comments and feedback about the new system to yourHealth. gov. au.