Home
Encounters
Open a service recording for patient interactions and add clinical items, record progress notes, prescribe medications, review investigations, write referrals and manage recalls.
Clinical Support
Datasets
Datasets are a user-friendly coding system, giving health professionals a standardised way to record data and report on data entered in a patient’s clinical record.
Primary Mental Health Care
Many Communicare health services are required to submit data relating to primary mental health contacts to the Government via their local Primary Health Network. Communicare has an optional dataset and reports suite to address both data collection and data upload.
Running and uploading PMHC reports
Run the PMHC reports to generate a file containing data from the PMHC clinical items, which you can then upload to the PMHC portal.

Encounters
Open a service recording for patient interactions and add clinical items, record progress notes, prescribe medications, review investigations, write referrals and manage recalls.
- Encounters
  Record patient encounters in Communicare using any one of the following methods.
- Medications
  This topic covers all Medications Management functionality within Communicare.
- Clinical Support
  - Investigations and documents
    Communicare receives pathology and imaging results, letters and other documents electronically and sends documents and letters electronically using HL7 messages.
  - Referral Management
    Manage incoming internal and external referrals from a single list.
  - Birth Notifications
    For customers who belong to the Western Australian Country Health Service, use the Birth Notifications module to manage notifications related to births from a single list.
  - Recalls
    Recalls are the elements that make up a care plan. Recalls can be either generated automatically by Communicare or manually created by the user.
  - Datasets
    Datasets are a user-friendly coding system, giving health professionals a standardised way to record data and report on data entered in a patient’s clinical record.
    - Australian Nurse-Family Partnership Program
      The Australian Nurse-Family Partnership Program (ANFPP) dataset is available to health services registered as ANFPP providers.
    - Communicare Infrastructure
      This dataset must not be disabled. It is used by Communicare internally and many parts of Communicare depend on it.
    - Communicare Value Added
      The Communicare Value Added dataset includes clinical item types not yet included in ICPC-2 PLUS, such as custom check-ups and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Checks. This data set is required for antenatal care reporting.
    - Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service
      The Drug and Alcohol Treatment Service (DATS) dataset is required for residential drug and alcohol services that need to submit data using the National Minimum Dataset. There are variations for NSW.
    - Flinders Care Plan
      The Flinders Care Plan dataset is made available to health services that are part of the Flinders Program and have undergone required training with Flinders University, S.A.
    - Home Support Programs
      Communicare supports three home support programs.
    - Headspace
      Headspace provides mental health support services to young people aged 12 to 25 years, who are experiencing, or at risk, of mental ill-health.
    - Healthy Under 5 Kids
      The Healthy Under 5 Kids dataset supports the Healthy Under 5 Kids Partnering with Families Program (2019), Northern Territory Government, Department of Health (DoH) initiative.
    - ICPC-2 PLUS
      ICPC-2 PLUS is a core dataset used by Communicare. The dataset allows health professionals to record symptoms, diagnoses, past health problems and processes (such as procedures, counselling and referrals) in a standardised way.
    - Immunisation Age Based Reviews
      The Immunisation Age Based Reviews dataset defines regular immunisation reviews based on age.
    - Immunisation Vaccines
      The Immunisation Vaccines dataset is a list of vaccines by brand name and includes the AIR Export Codes.
    - Integrated Team Care
      You can use Communicare to record Integrated Team Care (ITC) activity.
    - iSISTAQUIT
      The iSISTAQUIT dataset is made available to health services that are part of the iSISTAQUIT research program and have undergone the required training with the University of Newcastle.
    - National Lung Cancer Screening Program
      Clinical items, qualifiers and reports for the National Lung Cancer Screening Program (NLCSP) are available for all health services through Central.
    - NDIS
      Communicare has developed a simple workflow and dataset for services that provide NDIS brokerage or support coordination.
    - Primary Mental Health Care
      Many Communicare health services are required to submit data relating to primary mental health contacts to the Government via their local Primary Health Network. Communicare has an optional dataset and reports suite to address both data collection and data upload.
      - Recording PMHC
        To record PMHC encounters so that the data can be used in the PMHC MDS, use PMHC-specific clinical items.
      - Running and uploading PMHC reports
        Run the PMHC reports to generate a file containing data from the PMHC clinical items, which you can then upload to the PMHC portal.
    - RACGP Aboriginal & TSI Health Check
      The RACGP Aboriginal & TSI Health Check dataset enables the combined annual Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health check which was developed in conjunction with the RACGP and NACCHO.
    - RHD and acute rheumatic fever
      You can use Communicare to manage RHD check-ups and reviews.
    - STRIVE
      The STRIVE dataset enables you to paticipate in the randomised community trial to control sexually transmitted infections in remote Aboriginal communities in northern and central Australia.
    - Tackling Smoking
      The Tackling Smoking dataset captures data required for the South Australian Tackling Smoking Program.
    - The George Institute
      The George Institute dataset enables integration with The George Institute HealthTracker™.

Running and uploading PMHC reports

Run the PMHC reports to generate a file containing data from the PMHC clinical items, which you can then upload to the PMHC portal.

Use the following reports to generate Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for submission to the PHN. Run these reports from Report > PMHC.

CLIENTS
COLLECTION OCCASIONS
EPISODES
IAR DST
INTAKE EPISODES
INTAKES
K10P
K5
METADATA
Portal Error Details
PRACTITIONERS
SDQ
SERVICE CONTACT PRACTITIONERS
SERVICE CONTACTS

For details about the program or the content of the items, and for information relating to the upload, contact your local PHN.

Note:

Some optional information is not captured, such as the year of birth of the provider. Communicare V22.1 and later includes K10 and K5 assessment items but not the SDQ. If you already have an SDQ in Communicare, contact Communicare Support for advice on export codes required to ensure the reports find these items.

To extract the PMHC data from Communicare:

Select Report > PMHC > report_name and in the report, click Yes.

Tip:
The reports you need to run depend on whether or not you are an intake only, treatment only, or combined service.
Repeat for each of the PMHC reports you need to run.
When you have all the files, add them to an archive and name the file PMHC_Month_YYYY.zip. Remember this name, you will need it later.

To upload the files to the PMHC portal, follow the instructions provided by PMHC.

For details of the program or the content of the items, and for information relating to the upload, contact your local Primary Health Network.

For questions about where the reports find the data they require, contact Communicare Support.

8 October 2025