2. Identifier management

PMHC MDS keys are case sensitive and must:

• have between 2- 50 valid unicode characters
• start with a POSIX alphanumeric character (A-Za-z0-9)

Where data is being exported from client systems, these keys can be auto generated, providing that a key does not change once it is assigned.

2.1. Managing Provider Organisation Keys

Provider Organisations will be created and managed by Primary Health Networks (PHNs) through a user interface. Each PHN must create their own Provider Organisations before any data can be uploaded. Each Provider Organisation will need to be assigned a unique key. It is the responsibility of the PHN to assign and manage these keys.

2.2. Managing Client Keys

Client records will be created and managed by Provider Organisations via the upload and data entry interface. Each Client record needs to be assigned a unique key in order to facilitate adding/updating/deleting each item when uploading data. Once assigned, this key cannot change.

The Client Key will be managed by the Provider Organisation, however, the PHN may decide to play a role in coordinating assignment and management of these client keys.

Initially the Department wanted these keys to be unique across the PHN in order to ensure that there is a single key for a client within the PHN, and will continue to be investigate options for the PMHC MDS implementation of a Master Client Index during Stage Two of development.

2.3. Managing Practitioner, Episode and Service Contact Keys

The Practitioner Key, Episode Key, Service Contact Key will be created and managed by Provider Organisations.

The PMHC MDS specification requires each of these keys to be unique and stable at the Provider Organisation level.

Each record needs to be assigned a unique key in order to facilitate adding/updating/deleting each item when uploading/entering data. These keys will be created and managed by the Provider Organisation.

2.4. Managing Outcome Collection Occasion Keys

The Outcome Collection Occasion Key will be created and managed by Provider Organisations.

The PMHC MDS specification requires each of these keys to be unique and stable at the Provider Organisation level. Collection Occasion keys are allowed to be duplicated if different measures are collected on the same day for the same reason and episode. You cannot have the same collection occasion key for different collection occasions with the same measure.

This requirement has been implemented to allow a future version of the specification to separate outcome collection occasions and measures so that multiple measures can be associated with the one collection occasion.

Each record needs to be assigned a unique key in order to facilitate adding/updating/deleting each item when uploading/entering data. These keys will be created and managed by the Provider Organisation.

If you still have questions after reading this information, please visit the Department’s responses to Questions about Unique Identifiers and ‘Keys’