Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)

The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), part of the Australian Government’s National Medicines Policy, provides affordable medicines for Australians.

Twelve times a year, the Monthly Publishing Systems (MPS) processes the complete set of PBS data to create what is known as the Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits. The data is maintained in an Oracle-based ERP system but delivered as a 300mb XML instance of 1.5 million elements.

Ingested by the MPS, this source data is transformed into a number of deliverable formats that provide the Australian community with up-to-date information on a AUD$900m a month program that comprises the following:

  • Drugs – 1,000.
  • Suppliers – 210.
  • Branded items – 6,500.
  • Benefits – 3,500#.
  • System live since – 2007.
  • Site – pbs.gov.au.

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# “benefit” is the name given to a configuration of a drug form and strength (paracetamol, 500 mg tablet) and patient circumstances (chronic pain resulting from an accident). Under the PBS, any medicine prescribed and dispensed according to the rules of a benefit qualifies for financial relief.

Challenge

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The PBS changes every month, which means that the legislation listing the medicines eligible for a subsidy must be amended. Automating this task saves a significant amount of manual effort.

The PBS XML source data is a large, deeply contextual, XML instance governed by a complex schema that changes often. PageSeeder's robust document model makes it possible to ingest the XML and preserves the semantics at the same time as leveraging the native, end-user tools to index, search, validate and process the content.

PageSeeder supports a “pipeline” approach where processes can be configured to validate and verify the data before ingesting it. This allows the system to be managed by domain experts with very little XML experience. 

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For all consumers of the PBS data, not just the Parliament, the critical information for each monthly update are the changes. From a 300mb, 1.5 million element, XML source file, PageSeeder can find the 100kb of text that is different from the previous month.

Implementation

The MPS creates the following deliverables:

  • For end users, there is the website for users on desktop and mobile, plus a downloadable version of the complete website for institutions like hospitals,
  • For developers, there is an online API (supporting XML and JSON), plus SQLite,
  • For anyone that prefers paper, there is an automated process to create a 1700 page publication with 1,000 tables and a 60 page index. (To download the latest monthly Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits and corresponding change documents, go here),

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The PBS content viewed through the PBS API toolbox. Creating a content API provides developers with a stable, performant, XML source format.

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A well-designed API can significantly improve the productivity of downstream developers by reducing the amount of knowledge required to process complex data. The link model of PageSeeder allows flexibility for resolving the source data into different views.

  • The system creates approximately 1,500 pages of consolidated or amending Legislative Instruments, to be tabled before the Australian Federal Parliament,
  • All monthly updates are identified and presented either a Summary of Change document or a Comprehensive change listing,
  • Early release of the monthly updates, under secure embargo, to both authorized software developers and more than two hundred certified suppliers. Access for the suppliers is restricted to only changes in their portfolio of products.

Related Content

Use cases

System modules

  • Ox
  • Simple site