As we alluded to last week, the Australian Digital Health Agency has come back to the table this week with a bit of cash for clinical software vendors that weren't involved in the two secure messaging proof-of-concept trials it sponsored in Victoria to update their systems to incorporate new standards for interoperability.

While the money on offer was the headline, no one is under any illusion that this is the end of the road for what has been an intractable problem for well over a decade. In fact, pretty much everyone agrees it's just the start. Pulse+IT has written numerous screeds about the many challenges – technical, financial, cultural and practical – that face the healthcare industry in achieving a secure system of electronic communication so we won't repeat them again, but we will point you to an opinion piece we published yesterday by by Peter MacIsaac, who does a great job outlining some of the many challenges that remain, particularly around aspects such as message content and vocabulary adoption.