Secure messaging vendors will have the ability to issue authentication certificates on the spot and use their own identifiers as an interim measure while work continues on making messaging systems interoperable, with a project also underway on a FHIR-based directory standard that will allow rival vendors to query each other's address books.

Variously describing the National Authentication Service for Health (NASH) and the Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service as “failures”, “unwieldy” and “unsuccessful”, messaging vendors told the Health Informatics Conference (HIC) in Brisbane last week that an agreement to give vendors more control over the interoperability agenda was soon to be signed.