It was a big year for the FHIR standard as release three was launched and localisation was well underway in Australia and New Zealand. While it was created by an Australian and the Europeans have adopted it with alacrity, FHIR is in large part being driven in the US, home of the big EMR vendors Cerner, Epic and Meditech and other partners in the Argonaut Project. Cerner is bringing a SMART-on-FHIR EHR extension interface to Australia next year and an Australian version of the Argonaut project is also on the cards under the management of HL7 Australia. We'll have more on that in the new year.

In My Health Record news, NSW Health began sending pathology reports to the national system from some of its public hospitals. Pioneered by the labs formerly known as the South Eastern Area Laboratory Service (SEALS), NSW Health Pathology is using the HealtheNet portal to upload the reports rather than directly from the laboratory information system.