Innovation

Deloitte scores Australian health 'information gateway' contract

The consultancy firm will be delivering the first phase of the modernisation of the national digital health infrastructure project underway by the Australian Digital Health Agency.

Written by Asha Barbaschow, Contributor July 5, 2021 at 7:01 p.m. PT

Deloitte has scored a contract with the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA), the system administrator of the contentious My Health Record.

Deloitte Consulting will be delivering the first phase of the modernisation of the national digital health infrastructure project underway by the ADHA.

The contract is for the "health information gateway", which the agency described as a "pivotal piece of national digital health enabling technology that provides a secure and scalable platform for exchanging and accessing health information, including priority areas such as vaccinations and aged care data".

"The new gateway unlocks the agency's ability to deploy and manage additional health information repositories and health data exchanges in support of national priorities for healthcare delivery and digitising government services, now and into the future," it said.

It is expected the new gateway will support a number of government authentication processes so that information can be shared across other health platforms. The ADHA is also hopeful the gateway will be able to interoperate with other health information exchange tech, such as those used by state and territory health departments.

"A connected healthcare system is at the heart of the National Digital Health Strategy and while our national digital health infrastructure has already delivered significant benefits for Australians, it is now time to modernise and unlock the potential that new technologies offer," ADHA CEO Amanda Cattermole said.

"The new Health Information Gateway will reduce costs and technical and operational complexity often faced by healthcare providers by setting in place a single, consolidated gateway with reusable interfaces available to developers. And it requires fewer connections to be developed between healthcare providers and My Health Record and other digital health products and services.

"This goes a long way to making the sharing of patient information between healthcare providers easier."

The ADHA also announced it has modernised the way healthcare providers update information through the new Provider Connect Australia, which the agency touts as eliminating the need to keep multiple directories up-to-date manually.

"Provider Connect Australia is new technology that maintains the accuracy of healthcare service and practitioner contact details and will be rolled out nationally. It is expected to achieve economic benefits of more than AU$30 million per year by 2025," the ADHA said last month.

Deloitte, meanwhile, on Tuesday also announced it was launching an "AI Institute" in Australia.

"Deloitte's AI Institute is about bringing the many dimensions of the Australian AI ecosystem together, to advance the conversation on AI and ML, and their adoption across Australian government and business," Deloitte Consulting partner, and founding AI Institute leader, Dr Kellie Nuttall said.

"We will engage with futurists, corporate leaders, data scientists, and next-gen STEM talent to deliver impactful research that supports businesses in translating complicated unknowns into predictable, measurable outcomes.

"And we will examine important questions of how we build ethics and transparency into AI and help organisations remain distinctively human in a technology-driven world."