The Australian Digital Health Agency has released the Health Connect Australia Strategy, Architecture and Roadmap as part of the launch of the national health information exchange project, Health Connect Australia.
The overall aims of the programme look at improving access to health information between healthcare participants while also addressing the “evolving needs of Australians and healthcare providers” by enhancing the digital infrastructure in place.
Three separate documents have been created to help tackle key challenges around digital health inequity and low digital literacy levels, with the first being based on strategy. It gives an “overview of the strategic intent and goals”, which includes improving access to health information for the right people at the right time, allowing patients to control their healthcare journey, establishing national digital health tools to support health outcomes and making sure information is secure, high quality and addresses privacy concerns.
The agency also focuses on architecture, with an aim “to enhance national digital health interoperability” over the next five years, with 13 different intents outlined, including adopting a consumer-centric approach, supporting local investment and innovation, developing architecturally resilient technical platforms that can accommodate change, approaching technologies and practices with an ecosystem-wide perspective and more.
As well a high-level indicative representation of the roadmap detailed from 2025 to 2030 and beyond is shared. Split by four phases: a foundations phase (2025-2026), which looks at the establishment of a national directory for seamless access to provider information; a sharing phase (2025-2028), focusing on the secure communication of health information between providers and improving consumer access; a discovery phase (2027-2029), working on developing a record discovery service to locate and access healthcare information; and an enhancement phase (2027-2030+), which introduces value-added digital services.
Agency chief clinical adviser (medicine), Dr Amandeep Hansra spoke on the introduction of Health Connect Australia, saying: “The frustration for consumers having to constantly retell their story and clinicians trying to find information such as pathology and diagnostic imaging results, is real, and Health Connect Australia will ensure that a person’s health information moves with them though the system, enabling seamless care.”
Learn more about the Health Connect Australia Strategy, Architecture and Roadmap. (© Australian Digital Health Agency, 2025 Health Connect Australia Strategy, Australian Digital Health Agency.)
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