The agency acknowledges the financial pressures facing small health peaks, but warns that without sustained investment in workforce capability, Australia's broader digital health reforms could suffer.
Yesterday’s article about the government’s financial support of digital health capability programs struck a chord with many of us. It deserves a response by the Chair of the AIDH.
I want to acknowledge the truth in much of what Jeremy Knibbs wrote, and at the same time, offer the AIDH’s perspective where conclusions differ.
The AIDH is indeed a small not-for-profit health peak operating in an increasingly complex environment.
As Mr Knibbs points out, the Digital Health Festival, LinkedIn, the cost-of-living crisis and many other factors contribute to a landscape in which sustainability for an organisation like ours is more difficult than ever before.
Even so, our belief is that AIDH’s long-term success is ultimately dependent on its effectiveness and value to its stakeholders.
It is on us as its leaders to ensure it delivers on its purpose – helping create a health system that is enabled by good digital technologies and systems and a capable, knowledgeable workforce.
We are particularly proud of our work in building the capability of our workforces. We have a dual focus in this space – deepening the specialised knowledge of our digital health experts while lifting the digital literacy and capability of the broader healthcare workforce.
We continue to improve CHIA, our well-recognised credential, and are working to create the first national Clinical Informatics Fellowship.
Capability work is system-wide, comprehensive and challenging, requiring the collaboration and resources of multiple parties, and indeed the support of the Australian government. It is a public good.
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The creation of the National Capability Action Plan, a joint initiative between the Australian Digital Health Agency and the AIDH in 2022, is testament to the sector’s recognition of this at the time.
This work is also longitudinal. It takes time to move the capability dial in the right direction.
A sustained focus and investment in workforce capability is not only necessary to deliver capability goals, but also to ensure that co-dependent programs such as interoperability and standards do not get compromised. We hope to see a renewed interest and investment in workforce capability in the near future – much depends on it.
Advocacy and thought leadership by an independent body that is profession and industry agnostic is also important for a dynamic and evolving field like digital health. It helps shape the system for the better.
The Health Peak and Advisory Body program sustains these efforts for small health peaks like ours, and the absence of the grant in this round of funding has been felt.
At the same time, we must stand on our own feet. As a member body without a ‘regulatory moat’, we must constantly prove our value to members.
Many of our members recognise the intrinsic value of the AIDH – the presence of an independent organisation representing and advocating for a diverse range of people and organisations in digital health is important to them.
We are the home-base where clinicians, academics and policymakers, technology firms and health service organisations, and everyone in between, come together to advance digital health. We are non-partisan and don’t represent any interest other than the optimisation of digital systems for the benefit of healthcare.
For other members, the value must be tangible and practical. We’ve worked hard to keep member fees as low as we can, having held them steady for several years and lifting them modestly in the last two.
For that we offer access to multiple free member events, discounts on conferences and a complimentary subscription to this masthead. Like everyone else, we feel the cost-of-living crisis and have had to make difficult decisions in the past few months.
Anja Nikolic deserves recognition for her leadership of the AIDH in a complex environment. She is one of a long line of leaders, Fellows, members and other stakeholders who have provided stewardship to the organisation and broader community over the years.
AIDH’s long-term sustainability depends on whether it remains relevant to its stakeholders. For our part, there is much we want to do and our mission is far from accomplished. We will continue to listen, evolve and advocate. We intent to stay the course, and we hope our community feels the same.
Dr Shaun Francis is chair of the Australasian Institute of Digital Health. He is also executive general manager of Virtual Health and Clinical Informatics at the Royal Flying Doctor Service.