Bringing you the latest news and updates from DHCRC
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A message from our CEO
Annette Schmiede
A reflection on a transformative year for digital health
Welcome to DHCRC’s final Newsletter of 2025. As we reach the end of a productive and purposeful year, we are all looking forward to recharging over the Christmas break. The end of 2025 also marks a significant milestone, with next year being the final year of our CRC funding agreement with the Department of Industry Science and Resources.
Over the past seven-plus years, we have built a unique network of government, industry, and university partners who all see the urgent case for reaffirming the central role of digital innovation and acceleration of digital transformation to address health system-wide demand pressures that are impacting the health needs of all Australians.
As we look ahead to 2026, we have a clear focus on our priorities, translation and commercial development of our legacy achievements, completion of our research program, and supporting our education initiatives, that have the potential to make large-scale lasting impact. These forward-looking discussions are central to ensuring that the investments made through the DHCRC endure well into the future.
As we enter next year, our focus remains clear, creating self-sustaining legacies for our flagship initiatives. These include driving the digital transformation of aged care through Kinnexus, a technology solution for a standardised approach to the functional assessment of older Australians that links to mandatory quality indicator reporting and reduced manual data entry by aged care clinicians.
Making healthcare more efficient and effective through our ADAPt project by creating a near-real-time, standardised, secure data and analytics platform that provides safety, quality, and performance metrics to support national safety and quality standards for health services for accreditation and to empower clinical teams.
Embedding the important role of the Australian Council of Senior Academic Leaders in Digital Health – a unique national peak body that unites senior representatives from 37 universities across Australia, providing a collective academic voice on digital health policy, research, and workforce innovation will also be a priority.
Our advocacy work around data as a national asset, productivity, and procurement remains vitally important to support a thriving ecosystem of home-grown health technology providers and delivering better outcomes for clinicians and patients.
From a research perspective, final reports from the NHMRC and SERD, will provide critical documents to guide future research priorities and investment.
Recent announcements from the Federal Government, including the creation of an AI Institute and an AI Action Plan, are welcome initiatives, but our experience shows, the evidence-base needed to scale up widespread adoption of AI in health is significantly lacking. The technology is moving fast, so the research needs to keep pace and remain agile.
Thank you to all our partners, researchers, supporters and the DHCRC Team whose commitment and collaboration have made this year such a success.
I look forward to working with you in the year ahead as we collectively ensure a lasting legacy for digital health innovation in Australia.
I wish everyone a happy and safe holiday period.
Warm regards,
Annette Schmiede
CEO
Latest News
The DHCRC 2024–25 Annual Report is now live!
We are excited to release our FY2024-25 Annual Report. The report highlights how our collaborative research and industry partnerships are driving real impact across Australia’s health system. Check it out here – from project achievements and case studies demonstrating digital transformation in action, to the events we’ve attended and the advocacy efforts shaping national conversations in digital health.
After a successful two-year trial in the ACT, digital healthcare navigation tool MChart, is ready to be launched across the country, changing how mental health resources are found. The official launch of MChart took place in October, at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. In his opening remarks, the Honourable Bill Shorten, University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor and President, said:
“I know the power this tool can have, because I know that departments and planners need to understand how to best allocate scarce resources and how to identify where needs are, as well as what changes have happened over time.”
How safe are AI scribes in real clinical settings?
The DHCRC, the University of Sydney, and Lyrebird Health have launched a new project examining the safety of AI-enabled digital scribes in healthcare.
The Crowdsourcing AI Workshop, a first-of-its-kind event where more than 20 students, early–mid career researchers, and clinicians came together to put Lyrebird’s AI scribe to the test. Participants observed simulated clinical scenarios, identified potential risks, and challenged the technology in ways traditional research alone can’t achieve.
This unique, hands-on approach is providing fresh insights into how digital scribes behave in real-world contexts, and where safety frameworks need to evolve.
Kinnexus builds on the foundational work of the DHCRC’s flagship Aged Care Data Compare (ACDC) programme. The evolution from ACDC to Kinnexus involved rigorous real-world testing, technical validation, and collaboration with leading industry partners such as Regis Aged Care and AutumnCare, as well as academic leadership from the University of Queensland and technical expertise from CSIRO’s Australian e-Health Research Centre.
Currently funded by DHCRC through June 2026, the next phase for Kinnexus is to transition from a successful trial to a scalable, sector-wide solution. To that end, DHCRC is inviting innovative providers and vendors to trial Kinnexus in the next quarter. With technical support, a User Test Guide, and hands-on collaboration available until 13 February 2026. This is a great opportunity for aged care providers and their vendor partners to demonstrate leadership in helping deliver tangible workflow and welcome workforce efficiencies. If you wish to get involved or know others who might, please reach out to kinnexus@dhcrc.com to join us in building smarter, more connected aged care systems.
More than half a million Australian children attend School Aged Care (SAC) programs each year – yet access to structured wellbeing support remains inconsistent, particularly in regional and under-resourced areas.
A new DHCRC collaboration with the University of Sydney and Uniting NSW.ACT is set to transform that landscape. The team is evaluating a prototype of the Connect, Promote and Protect (CP3) Digital Platform, a world-first wellbeing and social-connection program purpose-built for SAC settings.
Co-designed with children, educators, families, and mental health experts, the digital platform adapts the proven CP3 face-to-face model into an engaging, scalable format that meets children where they are.
One of our latest projects is using AI and retinal imaging to detect systemic diseases, including cardiovascular and chronic kidney disease. By analysing retinal images alongside decades of linked health data, the team aims to develop a foundational AI model capable of non-invasive, early detection of multiple conditions.
Chronic diseases affect nearly half of Australians over 65, yet current screening tools are often invasive, costly, or insufficiently personalised. This project leverages oculomics, using the eye as a window into overall health, to create accurate, accessible, and preventative diagnostic tools.
Associate Professor Zongyuan Ge is at the forefront of using AI to transform healthcare. In conversation with DHCRC, he shares his view on AI as a ‘teammate’ for clinicians and the exciting projects he’s working on right now.
You’ve built a career at the intersection of AI, digital health, medical imaging and machine learning – what drew you to this field, and what continues to fascinate you about it?
My interest in medical AI really solidified around 2018, back when I was at IBM Research in Melbourne. I was working on a project focused on melanoma skin cancer, and that’s when it clicked for me. I saw firsthand how AI could potentially transform the entire healthcare industry – not in an abstract way, but in a way that provides real, tangible benefits to the public.
Education Update
New courses empower healthcare workers and students with skills to help connect care for all Australians
The Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) and the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC) have launched 2 eLearning courses aimed at improving understanding and use of My Health Record across vocational healthcare students and aged care workers.
The Digital Health in Healthcare: Understanding My Health Record course is aimed at current Vocational Education and Training (VET) TAFE students, and complements qualifications including nursing, allied health and health administration.
The Supporting Quality Aged Care with My Health Record course is designed for a range of roles, from aged care workers and aged care assistants to personal care assistants and residential support workers.
We’re proud to celebrate Dr Zhao Hui Koh, whose PhD journey embodies the cross-sector thinking the DHCRC exists to champion. Beginning as a data scientist and now progressing toward clinical psychology, Zhao used his time in the DHCRC program to fuse rigorous research with hands-on industry experience at SiSU Health. Supported by Swinburne University and the DHCRC emerging leader cohort, he explored how digital technologies can meaningfully improve mental health care. His story highlights how PhD-level critical thinking, paired with real-world collaboration, can achieve outcomes for industry and shape an interdisciplinary career with impact. Find out more about Zhao’s journey and explore his work on the Big Thinkers Forum.
A draft Synthetic Health Data Governance Framework has recently been developed by the SynD Community of Practice at DHCRC with stakeholders from every state and territory health service engaging in this important work. The draft framework provides a practical, risk-based approach for the safe, effective, and lawful creation and use of synthetic health data in Australia. It supports data custodians, researchers, and health organisations to unlock the value of health information while protecting privacy and meeting legal and ethical standards.
An online version of the framework features an AI assistant to help users navigate the document, find relevant guidance, and access assessment tools for privacy, technical, and ethical risks. This resource streamlines applications for synthetic data projects, fosters collaboration, and enables faster, safer innovation in health research and service delivery. Users can quickly locate forms, checklists, and policy references, making compliance and project planning much easier. Next steps for this initial draft are testing by collaborators with synthetic data use cases and wider engagement with additional stakeholders, including health consumers.
Project Update
Implementing a scalable platform to enable data-driven digital health research and development
The collaborative project with Swinburne University of Technology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, and Propel Health AI tackles one of healthcare’s biggest challenges: unlocking clinical data sourced across a number of systems for research and innovation. First was testing of the Propel platform, a secure cloud-based system that links and harmonises data from multiple clinical sources, to give researchers safe access to consolidated, de-identified datasets. The team then explored how this platform could accelerate innovation and support validation of a lightweight vision-and-language model to support radiology workflows. Early testing shows strong potential while also confirming the need for fine-tuning using real clinical data.
This work demonstrates how advanced data platforms and responsible AI can reduce operational barriers and enable the use of real-world data to pave the way for a new era of data-driven healthcare innovation.
Upcoming Events
A time to rest, refresh, and rejuvenate for 2026...
The DHCRC team will be out of the office from the 18th of December and will be returning on the 5th of January 2026.
We would like to wish everyone a very happy, safe, and festive season, and a joyous New Year.
AI Care – Event Wrap
The AI.Care Conference, hosted by AIDH, held in November at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, brought together clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and industry leaders to explore the future of AI in healthcare across Australia.
Professor Enrico Coiera opened the conference by highlighting key challenges facing the sector, including the inappropriate use of AI by consumers and some clinicians, the rise of unvalidated tools, and the widening gap between innovation and regulation. He noted that 2026 may become a pivotal “Governance Year” for AI in healthcare.
Several DHCRC projects were presented, showcasing emerging research and practical frameworks in AI governance and the assessment of new technologies. These projects reflect the DHCRC’s expanding role in driving national innovation and thought leadership in the responsible and ethical implementation of AI within healthcare.
Importantly, following the strong discussions and momentum at AI.Care, Australia introduced a new national AI policy, marking a significant step toward ensuring the trustworthy and safe use of AI technologies across the country.
3 February – Face to Face, The University of Sydney
4 February – Face to Face, The University of Queensland, The University of Melbourne
5 February – Face to Face, The University of Sydney
Digital Health Week is an opportunity for anyone interested in digital health to share research and ideas. It is designed to be both informative, provocative, and a showcase of the innovative work being undertaken in digital health in NSW, Victoria, and Queensland. It will bring together researchers, health services, industry, and the community to build person-centred eHealth collaborations. In 2026, we will once again be delivering an innovative program in partnership with the University of Queensland, University of Melbourne, and University of New South Wales.
ITAC 2026 brings together sector leaders to explore how innovation and digital solutions are driving better outcomes for older Australians. From groundbreaking research to practical tools that enhance operations and care delivery, ITAC is where innovation moves from concept to impact.
