Setting the Standard: Project Kinnexus

Building upon the experience and outputs of the Aged Care Data Compare (ACDC) flagship project, the DHCRC is investing in the development of a production-ready SMART on FHIR Quality Indicator App to demonstrate the feasibility and value to industry of a solution for standardising the functional assessment of older Australians and generating evidence-based quality indicators.

Now is the time for Australia to shape the aged care data landscape to ensure we are meeting the needs of Australians through connected care that:

Adopts a consistent national approach to the functional assessment of older people;
Establishes an aged care minimum data set that aligns with the rest of healthcare; and
Supports generation of evidence-based quality indicators.

Kinnexus: Your Opportunity to Drive Innovation in Aged Care

Kinnexus is a pioneering initiative from the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC), developed through extensive research undertaken as part of the Aged Care Data Compare (ACDC) program. It demonstrates what modern aged care can achieve through nationally standardised functional assessments delivered within existing systems, supported by a robust platform for the consistent and reliable calculation and reporting of quality indicator data.

In early 2025, DHCRC invited forward-thinking aged care providers to participate in Kinnexus pilot activities. This opportunity enabled providers focused on workflow transformation and workforce efficiency to explore how Kinnexus supports the collection and reporting of quality indicators. For technology vendors, it provided valuable insight into the requirements for deploying Kinnexus within their own development environments, with technical support from DHCRC’s development partner, Beda Software.

These engagements, together with DHCRC and Beda Software’s participation in a national HL7 Connectathon, led to further enhancements. These enhancements include the ability to show longitudinal, person-centred insights that show trends and changes over time, supporting more informed and proactive care decisions – not just where a person is today, but the direction they are heading and the rate at which their condition is changing, enabling earlier identification of deterioration, improvement or stability. Other enhancements include anonymisation capabilities and strengthened cybersecurity controls.

By August 2026, DHCRC had successfully demonstrated Kinnexus within at least two aged care clinical information systems and one primary care system. Progress towards larger-scale pilots has been slower than anticipated, as implementation requires coordinated commitment from providers, software vendors, clinical users and governance teams during a period of significant regulatory change and conformance activity associated with the new Aged Care Act.

DHCRC has adapted its approach to make testing more focused and accessible for providers and vendors. As Kinnexus progresses, future participation will also need to include a contribution from participating organisations to support implementation and ongoing development.

As the national conversation around assessment reform continues to grow, there is increasing recognition that reliable, evidence-based functional assessment is essential to improving confidence in care outcomes for both older Australians and clinicians. Now is the ideal time to become involved in a Kinnexus pilot.

By reducing manual data entry and enabling information to be captured once and reused many times, Kinnexus helps return valuable clinical time to resident care, delivering tangible benefits for providers, staff and residents.

Organisations participating in a Kinnexus pilot will gain an early advantage in adopting innovative approaches to assessment, quality reporting and workforce efficiency.

Help shape the future of connected data-driven aged care. Get involved with Kinnexus today; Kinnexus@dhcrc.com.

Why get involved?

Participating in the Kinnexus trial is a unique chance to see first-hand the workflow and productivity gains that come from streamlined, standardised mandatory Quality Indicator (QI) reporting. By joining, you will help set the benchmark for how functional needs data is collected across the sector—making a direct impact on the future of aged care in Australia.

Nurses who have tested Kinnexus have spoken about the benefits of supporting all nurses, particularly newly qualified or new to aged care, to receive support in understanding and completing the comprehensive functional assessment. Quality Managers have greater confidence in the data informing QI reporting, and those managing mandatory QI reporting will save significant time in the process of generating and submitting quarterly Government reporting. In addition, they will have the ability to drill down to individual resident QIs and interrogate the robust data. Best of all, these QIs are generated in real time, automatically, from the interRAI LTCF assessment.

Users and our technology partners have also identified other functions they would like to see Kinnexus supporting. Participating in the current trials of Kinnexus will give you the opportunity to vote on and potentially trial some of these new features.

What will you receive?

Send your EOI to us by 30 October, 2026 to receive:

Comprehensive support funded by DHCRC, including personal access to HL7 FHIR experts to build knowledge and confidence with SMART on FHIR technology and standards.
Support from DHCRC partners, from QI and interRAI experts, with the validation of mapping data from your clinical information system to Kinnexus data elements.
Full access to a User Test Guide, hands-on training, and opportunities for ongoing collaboration and learning alongside sector leaders.
The chance to discover meaningful operational improvements—freeing up valuable time that can be redirected to resident care for nurses and clinicians.
Insight into how Kinnexus strengthens the evidence base for quality, supporting consumers, care protocols, and reporting requirements alike.
A say in the future direction of Kinnexus, with the ability to influence upcoming features and use cases based on real-world provider feedback.

Take advantage of this rare opportunity to work directly with emerging national digital health standards and play an active role in shaping Australia’s aged care data landscape.

What are the requirements?

The trial offer has the following requirements:

Complete Expression of Interest

Identification of a clinical lead, and a resource with data expertise from your organisation/vendor partnership

A nominated date and time for a 2 hour initial discovery workshop in February

Ability to bring groups of nurses or clinicians together in order to test Kinnexus

Meet the mandatory technical requirements.

There are different technical options available for providers and vendors to integrate and trial Kinnexus. An initial discovery meeting will be held within a week of receipt of your EOI to confirm feasibility, roles and timelines.

We will then put in place a simple agreement outlining our offer and respective responsibilities.

Vendor technical requirements can be found here.

If you are a Leecare Solutions customer, Kinnexus has already been successfully integrated, the timeline for deploying Kinnexus will be relatively quick.

EOI Form

Organisation Name *

Contact Name *

Contact Title *

Role Responsibilities *

Contact Email *

Elaborate on any current pain points that you think Kinnexus may help solve. *

Interest in pilot *

Please list all of the clinical information and software systems used within your organisation.

Available date and time for initial discovery workshop in October. *

Identified resources for clinical lead and a resource with data expertise from your organisation/vendor partnership. *

Vendor specific questions:

(optional)

Do you wish to use the DHCRC Kinnexus aged care clinical information software simulator?

Yes

Are you interested in trialling Kinnexus within your own vendor development environment?

Yes

Is there any other information that you think we need to know?

Thank you for your expression of interest. We'll be in touch soon!

There was an error trying to submit your EOI. Please try pressing submit again or contact us for assistance.

The Vendor Technical Requirements for the Kinnexus Industry Offer can be found here. More information on these will be gathered during the initial discovery workshop, and these are supplied for discussion purposes only.

Join our mission

DHCRC is seeking champions for reform to support the groundswell for aged care data standardisation and join us on this journey as:

an observer – to shape this solution, and learn more about SMART on FHIR and its potential to transform health and aged care: or
a vendor – to connect and test the solution, or
an aged care or primary care provider – to help us test and try the solution.

DHCRC is holding monthly webinars to provide updates on the progress of Project Kinnexus and to build industry involvement. All are welcome to attend, and we encourage you to invite your colleagues to join. Webinars are free but require registration.

Webinar 5 – user stories tested

Thursday, 23rd October 2025

Webinar 6 – show time

Thursday, 20th November 2025

Any questions? Get in touch via email: kinnexus@dhcrc.com

Setting the Standard: Project Kinnexus

Kinnexus: Your Opportunity to Drive Innovation in Aged Care

Kinnexus: Your Opportunity to Drive Innovation in Aged Care

Why get involved?

What will you receive?

What are the requirements?

EOI Form

Vendor specific questions:

Join our mission

DHCRC’s Aged Care Impact Series Webinar Updates

Kick off webinar

Webinar 2 – meet our developer partners

Webinar 3 – understand the development journey

Webinar 4 – continue the development journey

Webinar 5 – user stories tested

Webinar 6 – show time