Digital health is an Australia's health topic

Australia’s health system has a long history of using new technologies (or tools) to improve healthcare. Digital health supports a health system that:

  • is more affordable, convenient, accessible and equitable for all Australians
  • supports healthcare consumers and providers to prevent disease, better manage care and improve health outcomes
  • uses and reuses data to support collaboration, research, innovation, investment and policy.

This page highlights why digital health is important, the progress of digital health in Australia, and the challenges and opportunities for the use of digital health.

What is digital health?

Digital health refers to systems, tools and services based on information and communications technology that can be used to treat patients and collect and share a patient’s health information. Digital health in Australia has a broad scope, and includes (but is not limited to):

  • mobile health and applications (such as SMS reminders via mobile messaging, wellness apps, My Health app and Medicare Online)
  • digital medicines including electronic prescribing and electronic medication charts
  • healthcare identifiers
  • electronic health records (including My Health Record)
  • telehealth and telemedicine 
  • wearable devices (such as fitness trackers and monitors)
  • robotics and artificial intelligence
  • electronic referrals
  • access to trusted data.

Digital health can increase the quality and efficiency of information sharing between healthcare consumers and providers across the health system.

Healthcare consumers

Digital health empowers healthcare consumers to actively participate in and make informed decisions about their own care. For example, remote consultations via telehealth and telemedicine services can reduce some physical, distance and time barriers. Wearable devices and online tools can assist users to track their activity, symptoms, and measures such as heart rate and weight. Continuous blood glucose monitors can provide real-time readings to personal digital devices for people living with diabetes. Healthcare consumers can upload information for health practitioner assessment and can use the information to make healthy life choices in areas such as diet, activity and sleep.

Healthcare organisations and professionals

Digital health can improve communication between healthcare providers, healthcare services and healthcare consumers. Digital health can support patient care, improve patient safety and reduce wait times by:

  • enabling near-real-time access to consumers’ health data and information across different health care settings and borders
  • supporting real-time evidence-based clinical decision-making
  • providing digitally enabled patient screening and medication alerts
  • providing data-driven insights for better practice planning, resourcing and continuous quality improvements.

Health systems

Digital health underpins a modern learning health system and supports a continuous cycle of improvement. Timely and accurate information-sharing is key to enabling the health system to be responsive to public health emergencies and other challenges. Digital health innovation, including telehealth, point-of-care testing, electronic records, electronic prescribing and digital communication were key to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, including through reducing the risk of infection between healthcare workers and at-risk patients, supporting care for chronic and acute health conditions and supporting the mental health of the population (Sturgiss et al. 2022).

The consistent recording, use and reuse of data will enable researchers, innovators, collaborators and industry to contribute to growing a learning health system. Greater connection through better utilisation of data will also support public health planning and investment, identify opportunities for workforce efficiencies, inform system planning and optimise resource allocation.

Case study: A healthcare user’s journey in digital health (Part 1)

Chris* has some symptoms they are concerned about, so decides to look them up on the healthdirect Symptom Checker which can be accessed through the my health app. Chris also uses the my health app to make an appointment with a local general practitioner (GP) and receives an appointment reminder by SMS beforehand. Chris attends the appointment. Following a discussion and assessment, the GP provides an electronic prescription and uploads a shared health summary to Chris’ My Health Record to reflect the medication change, which Chris can review through their my health app. Chris attends a local pharmacy and provides an e-token to the pharmacist, who dispenses the required medicine. Additionally, the GP has suggested 30 minutes of light activity each day to support Chris’ wellbeing: Chris uses a smartwatch and a fitness application on the smartphone to track activity and heart rate. On follow-up 6-months later Chris’ overall fitness has improved and the symptoms that were of concern have abated.

Chris’s digital health journey highlights the tools that are available and accessible to both the healthcare user and providers, and the good health outcomes that can be achieved through the interconnectedness of healthcare data. 

*Fictional person

Digital tools in the Australian health system

Technical developments are supported by initiatives such as My Health Record and the establishment of the Australian Digital Health Agency. Recent developments in digital health tools and services in Australia include:

  • Electronic prescribing, which allows the optional use of electronic rather than paper prescriptions. Electronic prescribing is part of the broader digital health and medicines safety framework. 
  • Medicare online, a portal to claim, update, and access health statements through an online account.
  • Secure messaging of clinical information, which allows for the secure, encrypted exchange of information between health professionals.
  • My Health Record, a secure digital health record where key health information can be stored and accessed by a patient and their authorised healthcare providers. When kept up to date, it can provide a more complete picture of a patient’s health, and is available when and where it is needed, including in an emergency. Healthcare consumers can review their record using the my health app or the healthdirect app and Electronic National Residential Medication Charts.

Telehealth

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian Government added a number of Medicare-subsidised items to help healthcare providers deliver, and patients receive, telehealth services via phone or video call (Department of Health and Aged Care 2023). Healthcare providers able to provide telehealth services to healthcare consumers include GPs, specialists, allied health providers, mental health professionals, nurse practitioners and participating midwives. 

Between 13 March 2020 and 31 July 2022, 118.2 million telehealth services were delivered to 18 million patients, and more than 95,000 practitioners used telehealth services (Australian Digital Health Agency 2022).

Challenges and opportunities

Digital health tools offer many benefits to health and healthcare services delivery in Australia and globally. Australia already has strong foundations to support a digitally enabled health system. These foundations need to be expanded on and embedded over the coming years to support truly connected care for all Australians.

Key shared challenges include:

  • Equity of access, not everyone has the same opportunity or ability to employ the tools required to use digital information and services.
  • Interoperability and data standards, to ensure seamless and accurate transfer of information with shared meaning between different systems.
  • Data literacy and data citizenship, relating to the understanding of personal data and its use, access, sharing and ownership.
  • Security and privacy, to protect sensitive information from both unintentional and malicious disclosure.

Equity of access

Healthcare providers’ and patients’ engagement with digital health tools relies on having access to the internet and to devices that are up-to-date and secure. Providers and patients also need the knowledge and confidence to effectively use information.

People may face other barriers to use of digital health tools such as socioeconomic disadvantage, disability, complex health problems, and lack of experience with new and emerging technologies.

The National Digital Health Strategy 2023–2028 notes that all health consumers should benefit from digital health. The strategy’s priorities are to improve access and use for all population groups, regardless of socioeconomic status, disability or other potential barriers.

Interoperability and data standards

Advances in digital health tools have made it possible for Australians to better access, transmit and record health information (Services Australia 2021). Ensuring systems are connected, and can easily share information with shared meaning are key to these improvements and are supported under the National Digital Health Strategy, the Digital Health Blueprint 2023–2033 and the National Healthcare Interoperability Plan (the Plan). The Council for Connected Care (the Council) has been established to provide strategic advice on matters related to interoperability and support national implementation of the Plan, including monitoring progress against the Plan’s actions.

The Plan outlines the current state of interoperability in Australia’s healthcare system and identifies priority actions to foster a more connected healthcare system. It sets the direction for a nationally coordinated future state that leverages current activities and creates opportunities for future innovation. The Plan was developed under the governance of a national steering committee and was informed by national consultations undertaken in 2019, and engagement with health departments and other key stakeholders in 2020 and 2021.

The main goal of interoperability is to support high quality and safe care through ‘a connected healthcare system that conveniently and seamlessly shares high-quality data with the right people at the right time’.

Key priorities of the Plan include:

  • Adopting healthcare identifiers to ensure that individuals, healthcare providers and healthcare provider organisations are uniquely and correctly identified when exchanging health information.
  • Increasing information exchange between healthcare providers and individuals by making information discoverable and accessible, with consideration of an individual’s safety, consent, privacy and data quality.
  • Driving interoperability through future innovations that apply interoperability principles to new digital health initiatives and functional enhancements.
  • Driving digital transformation through effective leadership and a sustainable approach to standards governance to ensure that digital health standards, specifications and terminology are developed consistently and collaboratively, and are fit for purpose, widely adopted and implemented using relevant conformity assessment schemes.

As part of the 2023–24 federal Budget, $15 million in funding was provided to establish a national partnership between the Australian Government, the Australian Digital Health Agency, the CSIRO and HL7 Australia, that has launched Australia’s first Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) accelerator, Sparked. Sparked aims to deliver a core set of FHIR standards for use in Australian settings over the next two years, developed by and for the community.

The AIHW Metadata Online Registry (METEOR), is a key asset to improve access to and the utility of consistent health (and other sector) data definitions in an increasingly digital environment.

Data literacy and data citizenship

Active participation with digital health tools empowers people to share access to, and engage with, technologies as part of their own healthcare and wellbeing journey. Factors that encourage participation include:

  • data literacy (the ability to interpret and understand health data) 
  • data citizenship for the healthcare user (engaging with and using own health data in a meaningful, informed, consented and empowered manner)
  • data citizenship for the healthcare provider (the ethics, governance and legal requirements for health data management understanding).

For more information, see What are determinants of health?

Security and privacy

With heightened community awareness around data collection and new data sources, methods, and technologies, digital health systems must support safe storage and sharing of data to meet legislative requirements and encourage public trust.

Data containing identifiable information about a person must comply with the Commonwealth’s Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles within the Act, which apply to all private sector healthcare providers throughout Australia. For public healthcare providers, most states and territories have their own equivalent legislation. Data security and privacy guidelines provided by the National Health and Medical Research Council also help to ensure appropriate use of health information.

There are also privacy and legislative frameworks specific to national digital health infrastructure. The My Health Records Act 2012, My Health Records Rule 2016 and My Health Records Regulation 2012 create the legislative framework for the My Health Record system.

The My Health Records Act limits when and how health information included in a My Health Record can be collected, used and disclosed. Unauthorised collection, use or disclosure of My Health Record information is both a breach of the My Health Records Act and an interference with privacy.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) is the independent regulator of the privacy aspects of the Healthcare Identifiers Act 2010 (HI Act) and the Healthcare Identifiers Regulations 2010 (HI Regulations). The HI Act implements a national system for assigning unique identifiers to individuals, healthcare providers, and healthcare provider organisations. The identifiers are assigned and administered through the Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI Service), currently operated by the Chief Executive Medicare.

Case study: A healthcare user’s journey in digital health (Part 2)

Chris* experienced some health problems and chose to seek out programs and apps within the digital health environment. Like many others, Chris is interested in what happens to their personal health information once it enters the digital sphere. 

By using the my health app to access their My Health Record, Chris learns that information can be securely stored and transferred digitally (system interoperability), and understands personal data could be accessed and used by their treating healthcare providers who understand the ethics, governance and legal requirements for managing health data (data citizenship). Chris also learns this sensitive information is only collected or disclosed with their consent, or where collection is required or authorised by law, in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988.

In doing so, Chris’ own ability to interpret and understand health data (data literacy) has improved and Chris feels empowered to use this data in a meaningful and informed way (data citizenship). Chris also knows the importance of security and privacy in the digital health environment and understands how this sensitive information is protected. 

*Fictional person

Where do I go for more information?

For more information on digital health, see: