Pathology and diagnostic imaging provider Sonic Healthcare is about to go into a technical proof of concept trial with the Australian Digital Health Agency to map the processes and workflows for uploading pathology and radiology reports to the My Health Record, leading the way for other providers to adopt over time.

Sonic recently announced that its subsidiaries Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology and Queensland X-Ray would be the first private providers to connect to the national system, intending to begin uploading reports for patients in Queensland. Before that happens, however, there are still some technical and practice workflow issues to resolve, with GP practice management software vendors making some adjustments to their systems and some modifications also required to laboratory software.

Sonic Healthcare CIO Peter Joseph told Pulse+IT that the proof of concept trial would map out the whole process of requesting, receiving and uploading test reports, from the creation of the order, its transmission to a laboratory, the receipt of the order and collection of the sample, and its processing. It will also cover the reporting of the result back to the requesting doctor and the upload of a report to the My Health Record with the patient's consent.