Enabling exemplary person-centred care through digital innovation

The ACT Health Directorate’s Digital Health Strategy is based on a Digital Health vision that describes a foundational and future ready Digital Health environment that is aligned to the Territory Wide Health Services Strategy’s vision, core values and strategic goals.

ACT Health Directorate Vision Your Health – Our Priority
Core Values Care Excellence Collaboration Integrity
Strategic Goals

Strategic Goal 1:

Access


Providing the right service, at the right time, in the right place, and by the right team — every time

Strategic Goal 2:

Accountability


Robust and transparent decision making that supports the health system

Strategic Goal 3:

Sustainability


Strategic investment to support health services now and into the future

 

Digital Health Strategy - Vision table 1 and 2

Digital Health Vision

Enabling exemplary person-centred care through digital innovation.

Digital Health Strategic Themes

  • Patient-centred
  • Research, discovery and collaboration
  • Health services enabled by contemporary technology

Broad Base of Information Users

  • Primary care providers
  • Clinicians
  • Other Staff and Volunteers
  • Educators
  • Private care providers
  • Community care providers
  • Family and carers
  • Patients
  • Management
  • Researchers
  • Students

Supported by an environment that promotes INNOVATION AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT through:

Digital Future-ready technology

  • Integration
  • Digital channels
  • Digital clinical systems
  • Digital corporate & operational systems
  • Information management and analytics
  • Collaboration & communications
  • Identity, security and privacy
  • Robust contemporary infrastructure
  • Governance, policies and standards underpinning safe and quality care
  • Future skilled and adaptable workforce

Digital Health Strategic Themes

Three strategic themes support the vision for the ACT Health’s Directorates Digital Health Strategy. The desired future state relevant to each of these strategic themes is outlined below.

patient centred icon

Patient-Centred

The Directorate aims to develop a patient-centred digital health environment that delivers on the principle of “One Person, One Record”.

This digital health environment will provide intuitive tools that enable clinicians to access and interact with the record to support their models of care, clinical workflows and other clinical guidelines and practices across disciplines, physical locations and organisations.

A digital health environment that delivers a single, trusted health record for every person engaging with ACT Government publicly funded health services will help to enable the delivery of safe and high quality patient centred care. This will facilitate greater engagement and empowerment of the person receiving care, supporting
integrated and networked models of care and service delivery, achieving the integration of research and education, and delivering a productive and efficient health workforce.

ACT Government publicly funded health services form only one part of a person’s journey, with the majority of their care received from primary and community care providers. This is particularly true of individuals with complex and chronic conditions which are increasingly prevalent across much of the Australian population.

A modern technology system would ensure that national and cross-jurisdictional initiatives such as the My Health Record could be integrated with and available to clinicians in conjunction with live up to date data from an ACT perspective. The Directorate’s digital health environment must enable it to operate effectively as part of this broader network that delivers care to residents of the ACT and southern NSW.

health services enabled by contemporary technology icon

Health Services Enabled by Contemporary Technology

Contemporary technology will enable healthcare providers seamless access to a person’s clinical information at the point of care. Availability of up to date information on patients is integral for clinical staff to ensure the delivery of safe and high-quality person-centred care.

A Digital Health Record would enable clinical staff to have access to their patient’s information on any device at any place. The technology would be the same across service providers and ensure that clinical staff had access to the right information at the right time to facilitate the best form of patient centred care.

Robust infrastructure will ensure ongoing seamless and secure access to clinical information and systems in a more economically sustainable manner. Automation of core administrative tasks and communication will free staff up to focus on clinical care.

research discovery and collaboration icon

Research, Discovery and Collaboration

Achieving the vision of integrated clinical care, research and education requires effective multidisciplinary teamwork, collaboration and knowledge sharing across Canberra Health Services, as well as with academic and research partners, and other clinical, research and educational institutions in ACT, across Australia, and internationally. The objective is for technology to enable multidisciplinary and multi-institutional teams to share knowledge, collaborate and communicate across traditional physical, geographic, organisational and technological barriers and make continuous quality improvements. This includes the ability to share research data assets and other forms of information in a secure manner within the context of ethics, privacy and organisational intellectual property controls.

The digital health environment will support staff in discovering and connecting with other people that have the skills, knowledge and expertise to make a positive contribution, be that related to patient care, research, or education and training. The digital health environment will support access to technology that:

  • Enables learning from every patient encounter and from every piece of electronic data
  • Adapts to the increasing quantity and complexity of data
  • Provides intuitive and flexible research and analysis tools that are accessible to a wide range of users
  • Supports continual improvement in clinical care, research, education and health service management
  • Balances accessibility and protection of data
  • Increases the effectiveness and efficiency of clinical trials as well as other research and improvement activities.

Digital Future Ready Technology

The ACT Health Directorate’s Digital Future Ready Technology will support the vision and promote innovation and continuous learning through:

Digital Health Strategy - Vision table 3

Integration

Interoperability across information systems to deliver seamless care across services, settings, and organisations.

Digital channels

Access to information and people anytime, anywhere (e.g. mobile, tablet, computer, wearables, etc.).

Digital clinical systems

Create a single source of trusted information and supporting tools about the patient, their conditions, diagnoses, test, medications and interventions to support the delivery of exemplary patient care.

Digital corporate & operational systems

Deliver improved operations and administration through timely access to digital information and tools.

Information management and analytics

Maximise the potential value of information and analytics to deliver operational excellence, clinical improvement, research and innovation.

Collaboration & communications

Enable effective, efficient communications and collaboration between patients and staff and across care team to support multi-disciplinary and connected care.

Identity, security and privacy

Establish the security and identity management capabilities necessary to ensure that information is stored securely and privacy is maintained.

Robust contemporary infrastructure

Build upon current infrastructure investments. Prioritise availability, reliability, security and shift to a Cloud-first approach to meet future demands.

Governance, policies and standards underpinning safe and quality care

Establish a foundation of good governance, policies and standards to provide accountability, transparency, and coordination across the organisation and its care partners.

Future skilled and adaptable workforce

Equip patients and staff with the skillsets and tools to advance the Digital Health vision.

Page last updated on: 7 May 2019