We’ve taken a look at the “Digital Health Blueprint 2023-2033” from The Department of Health and Aged Care in Australia, which sets out a ten-year roadmap for digital health technologies and presents “a more personalised and connected health and wellbeing experience for all Australians”. Alongside the blueprint is an action plan, set to be updated continuously to reflect changes in the digital health landscape.
The blueprint takes a “principles-led approach”, based on person-centred, collaborative, trusted and enduring health and care. In line with these principles, proposed outcomes include giving Australian citizens a choice in how they manage their health; digitally empowering the Australian health workforce to “provide connected care with confidence”; sharing data and information securely across the system; and presenting “modern digital foundations” to promote a collaborative and safe health system.
Commitments made to patients within the blueprint cover access to “convenient, consistent and trusted health information, services and better quality care”, including greater access to and choice of providers, as well as investments in innovation and research. For providers, commitments are around streamlined systems, tools and services, including clinical decision support tools, improved digital literacy, and data sharing. Researchers, innovators and collaborators are also promised more clarity on long-term policy and priorities.
Anticipating “significant community challenges” over the coming decade, the blueprint lists several digital responses to help mitigate these, including the use of digital records in helping support continuity of care even when disrupted or displaced; the use of telehealth in providing patients safe options for care; ePrescribing to compliment telehealth and remote care; and the use of Healthdirect Australia’s Service Finder platform to help patients find services.
Finally, for each of the four principles identified in the blueprint, it lists “action areas” including connecting people’s healthcare journeys, collaborating with representative organisations for broader adoption, driving towards national consistency in education and training, meeting public expectations for consent and data sharing, ensuring interoperability of systems, strengthening foundations for emerging technology and devices, and promoting use and reuse of national infrastructure.
To read the strategy in full, please click here.
© 2023 Commonwealth of Australia as represented by the Department of Health and Aged Care [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License]
Also on strategy, we recently covered the Austrian Federal Government’s AI strategy, Artificial Intelligence Mission Austria 2030 (AIM AT 2030), which is “the result of an extensive stakeholder process in which more than 160 experts from different disciplines were involved”, to consider its provisions for the use of AI in the health sector.
