Welcome to our June Newsletter. As we approach the end of the financial year, we can report that our Research and Development Program is tracking towards $40 million of funds committed. There are 40 projects in delivery and 17 completed. We have close to 20 projects in development which we expect to see in delivery before the end of the year. This has been a herculean effort across the whole organisation under the leadership of the Director of Research Dr Clare Morgan.
The Federal Budget last month included significant funding for digital health and Medicare reform. I was fortunate to attend Health Minister Butler’s Press Club speech the week before the Budget where he previewed this funding and the Government priorities in health.
There were a number of important commitments for digital health to secure the future and improvement of My Health Record through ongoing funding of the Australian Digital Health Agency. We are expecting policy announcements to support the development of interoperability and development of national standards. There was also a commitment to modernise Medicare with the introduction of MyMedicare to better connect health data to help doctors, nurses and primary care providers to deliver better continuity of care for patients.
In total, the Federal Government committed over $800 million to digital health, which it says will give “health professionals the digital and data tools needed to provide improved and more co‑ordinated care.”
There was also good news for our SME partners with the announcement of the $392 million Industry Growth Program to provide targeted funding to SMEs and startups to commercialise ideas and grow their business. Projects in the priority areas of the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, which includes medical science, will be eligible for the Industry Growth Program.
We are proud to work with a broad spectrum of innovative SMEs who are making a tangible impact on digital health both here in Australia and globally. In this edition you’ll find a profile of once such partner with Alcidion CEO Kate Quirke sharing your views on the opportunities and challenges for digital health today.
We were also pleased to partner with Alcidion and Alfred Health at Digital Health Festival in Melbourne last week. Check out the photos below. On our exhibition stand we also shared copies of our recent paper Digital Transformation Of Healthcare In Australia Constrained – A Call To Action For A National Data Governance Framework to delegates and there certainly was an air of expectation throughout the event that we are finally going to see national policy leadership to drive interoperability and national standards. We continue to actively advocate for such standards.
Next up for the DHCRC is MEDINFO23 in Sydney. It will be exciting to see this global event hosted in Australia. We’re planning to host a very special breakfast event – see further detail on this below. I look forward to seeing many of you at this event, if not before.
Warm regards,
Annette Schmiede
CEO, Digital Health CRC
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