The AIDH has told a Senate inquiry that CSIRO cuts undermine efforts in digital health and the use of AI in Australian healthcare.
CSIRO cuts are “a short-term, poorly considered move” with “longer-term ramifications”, the Australasian Institute of Digital Health warned the Senate’s Economics References Committee in a submission to its open inquiry, Funding and Resourcing for the CSIRO, due to report to the government on the last day of March.
The inquiry is looking into job and program cuts announced for the CSIRO, the impact that will have on public science, Australia’s science capability, the science workforce, the role of the CSIRO, and the particular effect of the cuts on the Environment Science Unit, among other things.
“Australia is at a pivotal juncture. Digital health and AI research is essential to building and sustaining a connected and integrated healthcare system,” said Anja Nikolic, CEO of the AIDH.
“Cutting the capacity of Australia’s peak science agency in digital health and data now is a false economy.
“It risks stifling the innovation and partnerships we need to deliver safer, more connected care, and which actually yield economic benefits.”
The CSIRO’s Australian e-Health Research Centre focuses on four core areas (AI, precision health, virtual care and interoperability) “that are vital and indeed essential if Australia is to maintain our enviable reputation as a world leader in health and digital health”, the AIDH submission said.
The CSIRO is a partner in developing and implementing FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), which “allows the safe, secure and seamless transfer of health data between computer systems by using a common language that health software systems understand”, the submission noted.
“My Health Record (MHR) is one example of a digital health system utilising FHIR.”
And the AEHRC leads Sparked, the “groundbreaking” FHIR accelerator which “is central to the government’s much lauded agenda of having healthcare providers share information between them to allow for integrated and multidisciplinary care, and to upload personal health information so consumers have much more timely and accessible access to their health records and pathology and imaging results”, the AIDH said.
Cutting yet more jobs from the CSIRO at this time was “a retrograde step” that would end up costing us more in the long run, the submission said.
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“[R]esearch and innovation in healthcare and related sectors is increasingly expensive and requires high-level expertise. However, cutting jobs and reducing expenditure in areas related to building and maintaining a world-class digital health system will likely have long-term implications that stifle innovation and discourage investment.”
The AIDH said that it “strongly opposes” the job cuts and called for more funding for the AEHRC.
“If we want equitable access to digitally enabled care, we need sustained investment in the science, standards and workforce capability that make safe information sharing possible,” Ms Nikolic said.
Other submissions made to the inquiry noted that now was a particularly bad time to pull science funding, with Australian universities facing economic pressures, US president Donald Trump’s assault on science institutions and research, and the impacts of climate change that were being seen in Australia and our region.
They also noted the negative effect cuts would have on productivity, on the continued erosion of sovereign science capability and infrastructure, and on our abilities to fulfill our international obligations and maintain relationships.