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Administration
Communicare Administrators can tune the way in which Communicare works at your health clinic.
System Administration
System administration functions affect all Communicare users and should be used with care.
Reference Tables
Communicare Data Updater
Use the Communicare Data Updater to update Central items and other clinical data, AIR rules, templates and reports, and the GRT in your database.
Update Central Data
Use the Communicare Data Updater to update Central items to the latest version.

Administration
Communicare Administrators can tune the way in which Communicare works at your health clinic.
- System Administration
  System administration functions affect all Communicare users and should be used with care.
  - System Parameters
    If you belong to the System Administrators user group, you can configure Communicare by setting system parameters.
  - Organisation Maintenance
    Configure Communicare for your organisation by setting organisation parameters. Changes to organisation parameters affect the Communicare system for the organisation and all workstations.
  - User Groups
    Users of the Communicare system are organised into groups. Rights to access various parts of Communicare are given to these groups of users.
  - Reference Tables
    - Communicare Data Updater
      Use the Communicare Data Updater to update Central items and other clinical data, AIR rules, templates and reports, and the GRT in your database.
      - Update Central Data
        Use the Communicare Data Updater to update Central items to the latest version.
      - Update AIR Rules
        Use the Communicare Data Updater to update AIR rules to the latest version from Services Australia.
      - Update the GRT
        Before you run the Government Reporting Tool (GRT) for a reporting period, use the Communicare Data Updater to update the GRT and the associated nKPI reports to the latest version.
    - Certificates
      The Certificates Maintenance window lists all of the currently installed certificates used in various places in Communicare, including for Services Australia (IHI, OPV, AIR, Medicare and so on), My Health Record, and ePrescribing.
    - Appointment Facilities
      A facility is an object that is needed on an exclusive basis for an appointment.
    - Appointment Requirements
      Requirements are services or objects that may be needed for particular patient appointments and services, such as Fasting Bloods, Test Results, Transport, X-Rays.
    - Public Holidays
      Public holidays identify normal working days (or part days) that the practice will be closed.
    - MIMS Database Import
      If your site uses the Prescribing Full or Prescribing Once off/short course module, Adverse Reactions or browses the MIMS drug database, update MIMs monthly.
    - Formularies
      Use the Formulary Maintenance window to manage medication lists or formularies.
    - Locality
      The Locality reference table is a list of places used in patient addresses. It is initially populated with over 14,000 localities used by Australia Post when your Communicare server is installed.
    - Patient Skin
    - Patient Group Maintenance
      Use the Patient Group Maintenance window to define the groups that a patient can belong to and the behaviour of those groups.
    - Encounter Place
      An encounter place can take one of two forms.
    - Text Shortcuts
      Add or modify the text shortcuts for commonly used blocks of text available in Communicare. Text shortcuts can be used by clinicians in progress notes and letters.
    - Dosage instructions
      Use the Dosage Instruction window to review abbreviations or short codes for use when prescribing and add new abbreviations.
    - Medicare Benefits Schedule Shortlist
      Because the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) is so big, you can control the order in which Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items are displayed in Communicare and add short descriptions that are meaningful to your context.
    - Private Billing Configuration
      Use File > Reference Tables > Private Billing options to modify the fee schedule and private billing types used by the Private Billing module.
    - Investigations
      Investigations can be requested by a provider from within a patient's clinical record. Use the Investigation reference table to define investigations.
    - Clinical Item Maintenance
      Clinical items are an essential building block for providing a care pathway with the clinical record workflow.
    - Special Lookup Table Maintenance
    - Transport Mode
    - Chart Types
    - Viewing Rights
      Viewing Rights define access levels to clinical data for each user group.
    - SNOMED CT Import
      Communicare uses SNOMED CT-AU terminology to capture clinical data.
    - Reference Table Codes
      Communicare reference tables use a variety of codes to identify and manage clinical data.
  - Appointment Book Configuration
    Before your health service can use the appointment book, you must first configure the background information required for appointments and the appointment session templates that generate sessions into which appointments are booked.
  - Providers
    The Providers window lists clinicians who have been added to Communicare as providers at your health service.
  - Medicare Number Import
    Patient Medicare numbers can be imported directly from files provided by Medicare Australia.
  - Patient Import
  - Communicare Security
    Communicare's security scheme is designed to be easy to maintain yet effective. It works on 3 layers: SYSDBA, ADMINISTRATOR, MEDISYS.
  - Daily Process Service
    The Daily Process Service is a Windows Service which can automatically run a variety of database tasks each day.
  - Automatic Patient Status Change
    Every night the server will check the Inactivity years in system parameters and use it to change a patient's status after the specified number of years, based on the existence of contact services and patient address.
  - Terminal Server and Communicare
    The Communicare client can be installed on a Terminal Server.
  - Backup Regimes
    Backups of your Communicare database are critical for business continuity in the event of a disaster. Communicare is automatically backed up to the server nightly. Your site should take regular backups of these backups.
  - Disaster Recovery
    In the event of disaster, call Communicare Support on 1800 798 441 and follow these steps to recover your data.
  - File Transfer
    Communicare demos and updates are available from the Communicare User Portal - Help and Support tab.
  - Firewall Configuration
  - Upgrades
    Communicare upgrades are performed remotely by Communicare Support at a time arranged with the system administrator.
  - Database Connection Settings
  - Central Data
    Communicare maintains and distributes a specific set of Clinical Item definitions. Centrally maintained Clinical Item definitions are referred to as central items.
  - Terms Conversion
    Together with your Implementation Consultant, when your site goes live with Communicare, a clinician with Administrator user privileges can use the Terms Converter tool to convert local terms into centrally maintained terms, for example, ICPC-2 PLUS terms.
  - CAT Export Tool
    Use the CAT Export Tool to export datasets defined by the Improvement Foundation from Communicare as XML. These XML datasets can then be loaded into PEN CS' Clinical Audit Tool (CAT).
  - Background Processes
    Communicare runs a number of server-side background processes that integrate with various external services.
  - Communicare Logs
    Adjust the level of detail recorded in Communicare logs if required.
- Tools
  Use these tools to help manage Communicare.
- Regular Administrator Tasks
  There are several regular maintenance tasks for the Communicare Administrator to perform.

Update Central Data

Use the Communicare Data Updater to update Central items to the latest version.

Central data changes are included in the release notes, listed by their month of release. For more information, see Central Data Changes.

Note:

Ensure that the data from all laptops that use the offline client are synchronised and all processing is completed before you run a Central data update. After an update, a backup is performed overnight and a new offline database is created. Download the new databases to all laptops before the offline clients are used again.

You can also update AIR rules and template and report data when you update Central.

Tip:

To update immunisation clinical items, update Central data.

To update Central data:

Ensure nobody is logged into the Communicare server or clients, except you as the administrator.
On the Communicare server, select File > Reference Tables > Update Clinical Data.
If other users are logged in, the user and their computer name are listed in a banner. Before proceeding with the update, ensure that those users are logged out, then click Refresh in the banner.
Check the status.

Tip:
Select the caret to display when the local and central data was last updated.
To update Central data, AIR rules and templates and report data simultaneously, set Also update AIR rules data and Also update Templates and Reports data. Alternatively, deselect these options to update only central data.

Tip:
If required, to update only the AIR rules or the Templates and reports data, run the downloads from their separate tiles.
Click Download.
Enter your username and password.

The data files are downloaded from our server and the Import Central Data tool is run automatically. Your version of the data files is updated.

For Central items that had been updated locally, the items are archived on the server and information about those items that have been reverted to Central is displayed in the Data Updater.
Example notice of items reverted

Example notice of items reverted

If your health service uses Communicare offline, the next day, after the backup, download the new databases to all laptops before the offline clients are used again.

8 September 2026