New regulations expected by February will allow healthcare identifiers to be linked to wearable and biometric devices.
Wearable devices ranging from smartwatches to home monitoring technologies will be able to connect to Australia’s national digital health infrastructure under new regulations expected to come into force by February next year.
Speaking at the Australian Institute of Digital Health’s HIC2026 conference in Sydney last week, Simon Cleverley, assistant secretary of the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s digital health branch said the regulations would enable healthcare identifiers to be linked to wearable and biometric devices for the first time.
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“One of the things I’m really excited about is regulations that will be in place by February next year,” he told the conference delegates.
“That’s going to allow the healthcare identifiers to be connected to wearable devices and biometric devices.
“So, for example, if you’re someone receiving a Support at Home package, or you’re somebody receiving Hospital in the Home, or you have a smartwatch that you want to be able to share your data into a health record – while all of that’s not going to happen from day one – the regulations will be in place to allow the software providers and the healthcare providers to start using those healthcare identifiers against wearable devices.”
Mr Cleverley said the changes would help shift the health system away from treating illness after it occurred.
“That’s, I think, an exciting development to allow us to start breaking the cycle of ‘break and fix’ and start to think about how do we stop all of these things happening in the first place,” he said.
The announcement builds on the federal government’s broader digital health reforms, with healthcare identifiers emerging as one of the dominant themes of the conference.
Earlier in the discussion, Mr Cleverley said governments were increasingly focused on embedding healthcare identifiers across health, aged care and disability services so that information could follow patients throughout the system.
“We have to make sure that it’s connected to national healthcare identifiers because ultimately, that’s the way we’re going to get the consistent … error-free utopia,” he said.
“Making sure that the data captured about people is attached to that healthcare identifier, is made available to them, and of course to their care team.”
AI moves from fixing disease to preventing disease
Professor Clair Sullivan, director of the Queensland Digital Health Centre, said artificial intelligence was moving beyond supporting treatment into preventing disease before it occurred.
“We’re reasonably comfortable with AI in treatment,” she said.
“Where we aren’t yet comfortable, and it feels a bit nebulous, is AI in prevention.”
Professor Sullivan said research showed consumers wanted personalised, ongoing support rather than one-off interventions.
“I can see a future where you have your own personal prevention coach … that sits on your shoulder, that knows your genome, that can watch your lifestyle and look for opportunities to nudge you towards better lifestyle choices,” Professor Sullivan said.
“This is the only way that we’re going to be able to deal with the disease burden which is coming towards us.
“If we continue on in 1950s-style ‘break and fix’, we’re not going to have enough doctors, nurses, or allied health practitioners to fix everybody.”
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‘Digital twin’ of every Australian
Australian Digital Health Agency chief digital officer Peter O’Halloran said a more connected digital health ecosystem would eventually enable much more sophisticated use of health information.
“Imagine a newborn health check screening … what could then come out of it … is actually a detailed health and care plan for that child for the rest of their life,” he said.
“What could we do with that type of data?
“The ability to actually have a digital twin of every Australian … it’s no longer a pipe dream. This is real and within our grasp.”
Mr O’Halloran said achieving that vision would depend on ensuring appropriate safeguards and community confidence in how health information was used.
Child health record moves closer
Mr O’Halloran said work underway through the Thriving Kids program and My Health Record would establish a longitudinal digital health record from birth.
“We know that’s a real challenge today,” he said.
“Technically, the solutions are not complex; they’re all within our grasp.
“Thriving Kids, at its heart … is a few additional data elements in My Health Record.
“The other 99% is how do we actually work with parents and with the children and the clinicians … to ensure that we build an ecosystem around it.”
He said the long-term goal was for a child’s health information to be available throughout life.
“It means from the birth of a child we’re starting to collect their longitudinal health record,” Mr O’Halloran said.
“It will be accessible to that child when they’re an adult. It will be accessible to their parents and their clinicians before that.
“It means it’s starting to build that record, so it’s all accessible. It’s all available from one place.”
The AIDH HIC2026 conference was held in Sydney on 3-4 August.
