AUCDI (Australian Core Data for Interoperability)

regulatory framework regulatory compliancefhirinteroperabilityhealthcare

Acronym for: Australian Core Data for Interoperability

Source: internal System: https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au Code: AUCDI Reviewed: 16/12/2025 License: CC-BY-4.0

AUCDI (Australian Core Data for Interoperability)

One-sentence definition: AUCDI is the Australian Digital Health Agency’s standardized specification of core health data elements — demographics, medications, allergies, clinical findings, and others — that Australian health information systems must support to enable interoperable nationwide health data exchange.

Full Definition

AUCDI (Australian Core Data for Interoperability) is Australia’s equivalent of the US USCDI standard. It defines a common set of health data classes and elements that Australian health IT systems are expected to support, providing a consistent data foundation for interoperability across primary care, hospitals, pharmacy, aged care, and other sectors of the Australian health system.

Developed by the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) — the Commonwealth agency responsible for Australia’s national digital health infrastructure — AUCDI was published in its first release (R1) in 2023. It reflects Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy commitment to FHIR-based interoperability and aligns with HL7 Australia’s AU Base and AU Core Implementation Guides, which provide the FHIR technical implementation of the AUCDI data requirements.

AUCDI is a policy-layer specification, not a technical standard. It defines what data must be supported in plain language; the technical implementation is left to the AU Core FHIR Implementation Guide, which maps AUCDI elements to FHIR resources and profiles — paralleling the relationship between USCDI and US Core in the United States.

For the technical implementation of Australian FHIR interoperability — AU Base profiles, AU Core, and national digital health requirements — see the canonical reference → Australian Digital Health.

Context and Usage

Where This Term Appears

AUCDI appears in:

  • Australian Digital Health Agency documentation and national digital health strategy publications
  • AU Core FHIR Implementation Guide — each AUCDI data element maps to specific FHIR resource profiles
  • My Health Record integration requirements — AUCDI elements are central to the data exchanged with Australia’s national health record system
  • State and territory health authority procurement and integration requirements
  • HL7 Australia working group publications and implementation guidance

Common Usage Examples

In conversation: “We’re aligning our discharge summary format to AUCDI requirements before connecting to My Health Record.”

In documentation: “Clinical systems participating in national exchange must support AUCDI R1 data elements, implemented through AU Core profiles.”

In technical contexts: An Australian hospital EHR building a FHIR API must implement AU Core profiles for the AUCDI data classes — patient demographics, allergies, medications, problems, clinical notes — to enable nationwide interoperability.

Why AUCDI Exists

Australia’s health system has historically had fragmented health data exchange, with different states and territories, primary care networks, and hospital systems using different data formats and coding systems. My Health Record (Australia’s nationally connected patient health record) provided an infrastructure layer but depended on participating systems agreeing on a common data format for exchange.

ADHA developed AUCDI to provide a nationally consistent specification of the minimum data elements required for meaningful health data exchange — ensuring that participating systems share a common understanding of what constitutes a complete, interoperable clinical record. Without AUCDI, each integration point between systems would require custom negotiation of what data to exchange and in what format.

AUCDI Structure and Data Classes

AUCDI R1 organizes data into clinical categories that reflect the key domains of patient health data:

  • Patient demographics: identifying information, including IHI (Individual Healthcare Identifier), Medicare number, contact details
  • Allergies and adverse reactions: documented allergies, intolerances, and adverse reactions with severity and manifestation
  • Medications: current and recent medication lists, including administration details
  • Problems and diagnoses: active and historical clinical problems and diagnoses
  • Procedures: significant past and current procedures
  • Clinical observations: vital signs and clinical measurements
  • Immunizations: vaccination history
  • Diagnostic results: laboratory and imaging results
  • Clinical documents: clinical notes, discharge summaries, specialist letters

The data elements within each class specify what must be supported — which fields are required, which are optional, and what vocabulary or terminology systems apply.

AUCDI and FHIR

AU Base and AU Core Implementation Guides

HL7 Australia maintains two layered FHIR Implementation Guides for the Australian context:

  • AU Base: the foundational Australian FHIR IG defining Australian-specific extensions, identifier systems (IHI, Medicare), and base profiles for all Australian FHIR implementations. AU Base is analogous to a national FHIR baseline.
  • AU Core: the conformance IG that implements AUCDI requirements as specific FHIR profiles with Must Support constraints. AU Core is analogous to US Core in the US context — it’s the technically actionable translation of AUCDI into FHIR profiles.

Systems implementing AU Core profiles are implementing the FHIR expression of AUCDI requirements. The two are designed to move together: as AUCDI expands in future releases, AU Core profiles update to match.

Mapping to FHIR Resources

AUCDI data elements map to standard FHIR resources with Australian-specific profiles: Patient demographics to AU Core Patient; Allergies to AU Core AllergyIntolerance; Medications to AU Core MedicationStatement and MedicationRequest; Problems to AU Core Condition; Immunizations to AU Core Immunization; Observations to AU Core Observation profiles for vital signs and pathology.

Australian-specific terminology systems — SNOMED CT Australian Edition, AMT (Australian Medicines Terminology) for medications, Australian pathology terminology — are specified in AU Core for elements that differ from US implementations.

Regulatory Context

Australian Digital Health Agency

ADHA is the Commonwealth agency responsible for the national digital health infrastructure, including My Health Record, healthcare identifier services, clinical terminology services, and the national digital health strategy. AUCDI is an ADHA publication. Unlike the US model where ONC backs data standards with certification and regulatory requirements, ADHA operates primarily through national program requirements, procurement standards, and collaborative adoption.

My Health Record Integration

My Health Record (MHR) is Australia’s national connected health record system, maintained by ADHA. Every Australian with Medicare is registered by default. The documents uploaded to MHR — shared health summaries, discharge summaries, prescription records, diagnostic imaging reports — use AUCDI-aligned data elements. AUCDI compliance is increasingly a requirement for systems connecting to or uploading records to MHR.

Relationship to Other Terms

  • FHIR — the technical standard through which AUCDI data is exchanged via AU Core profiles

Contrasting Terms

  • AUCDI vs USCDI: Both define minimum health data sets for national interoperability; AUCDI is for Australia, USCDI for the US. They share structural similarities — data classes and elements, a policy specification delegating technical implementation to FHIR IGs — but differ in their specific data requirements, governance, and enforcement mechanisms.

Why AUCDI Matters

AUCDI provides the data foundation for Australia’s vision of a nationally connected health system. Without a common specification of what data must be available and exchangeable, every integration between a GP system, hospital, pharmacy, pathology lab, and My Health Record is a bespoke negotiation. AUCDI defines the floor — the minimum data set that every participating system must handle — enabling a national health data exchange infrastructure built on shared expectations.

For health IT teams building systems for the Australian market, AUCDI and its AU Core technical implementation are the key conformance targets for any FHIR-based integration with Australian health data infrastructure.

Cross-References

  • FHIR — the data exchange standard used to implement AUCDI via AU Core profiles

Last reviewed: December 16, 2025 Definition authority: Australian Digital Health Agency Content status: Canonical reference