The public service merry-go-round has whisked away a champion of digital health, but it will be the HTA process’ gain, in the end.
Every human wants a little agency in their life, right? A bit of control over what happens to us – our families, our careers, our health.
Anyone who’s ever worked for a big corporation knows that you are ultimately at the beck and call of whoever is at the top of the tree writing the paycheques.
Nowhere is that prospect more certain than life in the Australian Public Service – particularly the higher you get up the ladder, and particularly if you’re good at it.
This is the position Daniel McCabe now finds himself in.
Currently Mr McCabe is the first assistant secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s Medicare Benefits and Digital Health division.
Next week, we understand, he’s off to Madrid for a digital health conference. The week after that he will be doing battle with senators in Estimates – 2, 3 and 5 June for those with a love of the esties.
And then he will suddenly become first assistant secretary of the DoHDA’s Technology Assessment and Access division.
Just like that. Seven years’ personal investment in a sector he clearly feels very passionate about, with colleagues, as our exclusive report on Thursday revealed, who admire and respect him and the legacy he leaves behind.
“Ultimately, his legacy will impact Australians for generations to come,” said Simon Cleverley, Mr McCabe’s 2IC in digital health.
Let’s face it, it’s not often you hear public servants described that way – especially ones at the operational level Mr McCabe is at.
It’s also a statement I agree with.
I’m not sure Mr McCabe has ever quite forgiven me since I reported he was “gobsmacked” when disability was added to the portfolio after the 2025 election.
Nevertheless, he has been a complete pro in his dealings with the media and it’s hard not to admire a bloke who has overseen a lot of positive action that has brought the country to the point where genuine connected care looks a distinct possibility.
At his last public session at a digital health conference on Thursday morning, that enthusiasm for the sector was on show. Despite knowing he is gone come COB on 5 June here is what he had to say about the future of digital health:
On My Health Record:
“We’re going to be realising the original intent of My Health Record over the next two years. We will implement, over the next two years, share by default for a whole range of things, including all medicines, care plans, health assessments, and really get more information available to consumers, so they’re more activated.”
On funding:
“We are starting to fundamentally change the way we need to think about funding of our healthcare system in Australia today.
“Across all sectors of our healthcare system – private and Medicare-funded – we fund for episodes of care, which has served us well for 40-plus years.
“What we’re starting to see now with AI, with all of this rich data that we’re collecting, is that we need to start funding a lot more for asynchronous care.
“As a policy maker, we need to start to have a conversation about how do we use some of this digital work we’re doing to then marry that against how we fund healthcare, how we fund our public hospitals, how we fund Medicare, and think about a paradigm shift to say that we need to fund more horizontal care rather than vertical care, which is what we do today.”
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On equity:
“We are trying to make sure that all of our digital interventions are broadly accessible by all Australians, but also starting to make sure that people have comfort, even if they don’t want to interact digitally, that their data is safely captured and can be used by people they trust in their healthcare journey.
“So our challenge at a national level is making sure that we don’t leave anyone behind.”
Mr McCabe’s immediate future is to steward the critical reforms to the health technology assessment process that have been on the government’s to-do list for the past couple of years.
That’s a big job, and a hugely important one, given the gripes and groans that are coming with more and more frequency from big pharmaceutical companies and lobby groups like Medicines Australia, about the speed, cost and efficiency of the PBS.
None better to do it, I suspect. And of course, that’s why he’s been moved there. Do your job well and odds are you’ll be shifted somewhere else to fix another problem.
The shame is that Mr McCabe won’t be able to finish the transformation he has started.
The fact that not many people in the room at the Digital Health Festival in Melbourne on Thursday morning knew that they were hearing him speak on digital health publicly for the last time, made his final statement all the more powerful.
When asked what the sector needed to do in the immediate future, he said:
“Just stay the course, everyone. My minister says to me regularly, this digital stuff’s really important.
“We’ve got to stay the course, because otherwise we will not be able to afford healthcare.”
Amen, Mr McCabe, and good luck to you in your future endeavours.