AIDH News

30 November 2023

AIDH membership number:

Message from the CEO: What a fantastic event our first AI.Care conference in Melbourne was last week! Thank you to the 270 delegates who attended including over 80 speakers who enlightened us with discussions that will help put Australia’s digital health community on the right track to implement AI safely, ethically and responsibly.

Some of the many highlights included the

opening plenary on global standards

for health AI innovation by Dr Eva Weicken, the citizens jury from Professor Stacy Carter and the latest on the regulation of AI software by Ms Tracey Duffy. The launch of the National Policy Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

by the Australian Alliance for AI in Healthcare (AAAiH) founder Professor Enrico Coiera FAIDH, emphasising the need for a holistic approach, was a particular highlight.

The AAAiH Roadmap positions the AIDH, partner organisations and our members, especially Fellows, to lead the adoption of AI. Discussions at the conference also provided recommendations for governments and providers to help implement AI for healthcare.

AIDH will continue to support an upskill our members and other health workers with the core digital health skills to lead deployment of AI, through conferences, events and training. We will do this through our CXIO network, CHIA, FAIDH and Women in Digital Health programs.

All of us have a responsibility to make AI in healthcare as safe as possible. The AIDH is

here to support the sector in adapting and capitalising on AI and working

towards the common goal of Healthier Lives, Digitally Enabled.

I would like to welcome new members and organisations who joined the AIDH at the conference. Our team enjoyed the opportunity to meet you in person. We are sure you will enjoy the many benefits of our membership, which include access to professional development opportunities, a diverse and thriving community and advocacy on behalf of the digital health sector.

I would also like to warmly welcome our new Branch Committee members and welcome back our returning committee members, elected last week to serve our state divisions. They bring a wealth of experience from working in a range of digital health fields which will further enrichen our branch offerings to members. We look forward to working with them.

My personal thanks also to retiring Branch Committee members for their dedication and hard work over the past three years in helping to bring Branch events to life.

Kind regards

Mark Nevin FAIDH

Interim CEO, Australasian Institute of Digital Health

AI.Care2023 a huge success

The AIDH’s inaugural AI.Care conference in Melbourne last week was a huge success with 270 delegates, including 80+ speakers, from around Australia and overseas attending. Attendees and presenters were from health, law, research, industry, government and consumer fields and covered an extensive range of topics including safety, ethics, standards, medicolegal and workforce issues, frameworks, innovation, generative AI and regulatory requirements. Co-chair Neville Board FAIDH said he hoped the conference had equipped delegates, who represented a highly expert group, with new toolkits to enhance AI expertise.

AIDH interim CEO Mark Nevin said: “When healthcare works in partnership with tech, there’s a lot of capability we can leverage to ensure we adopt AI safely. We were pleased to see the TGA presentation showing it is getting on top of the AI challenge and will hopefully be putting new safeguards into play.”

Thank you to the conference committee for making AI.Care such a success. Co-Chairs - Tanya Kelly and Neville Board and committee members David Hansen, Farah Magrabi, Ian Manovel, Lemai Nguyen, Sandeep Reddy and Karin Verspoor.

A huge thank you to our partners for their continued support of the AIDH including Fujitsu, CSIRO Australian eHealth Research Centre, Heidi, Xenon and Nvidia.

National roadmap for AI in healthcare launched

A National Policy Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare was launched at AICare last week, paving the way for safe, ethical, sustainable and personalised AI in healthcare in Australia.

Professor Enrico Coiera FAIDH unveiled the plan, detailing 16 recommendations across five priority areas, saying it was the first time in digital health there had been a consensus on what needs to happen.

Opinion: Healthcare must establish parameters for safe and ethical use of AI - Pulse+IT

Interim CEO Mark Nevin FAIDH has written a thought leadership opinion piece for Pulse+IT on AI in healthcare and what needs to happen to ensure use is safe and ethical. As an AIDH member, you have complimentary access to Pulse+IT so you can access full text of stories and comment pieces.

Holiday office closure

The AIDH will close for the holidays from Friday December 22 and will reopen on Tuesday January 2. There will be skeleton staff in the week before we close and the week after we reopen to assist with any queries.

We would like to take this time to wish our valued members, partners and stakeholders a safe and happy holiday season.

Input needed for pancreatic cancer roadmap

The Centre for Digital Transformation of Health at the University of Melbourne is developing part of the National Pancreatic Cancer Roadmap, funded by Cancer Australia, and is recruiting health IT professionals to participate in Zoom interviews of 30 to 45 minutes.

Dr Chathurika Palliya Guruge, a research assistant in digital clinical pathways at the centre, said the goal was to gather information to understand the evidence for digital health solutions across different geographic and practice settings nationwide. Collected information will be used to develop recommendations for digital health tools to support adherence to clinical guidelines, early palliative care and pain management for people with pancreatic cancer.

People interested in doing the interviews can contact principal investigator, Dr Kara Burns via kara.burns@unimelb.edu.au or 0414 294 967.

Mayden supports mental health services nationwide

Mayden design, build and support insightful and interoperable software for healthcare services in Australia, the UK, Ireland and Canada. Over the past 20 years, Mayden has worked closely with its healthcare customers and industry experts to create an Electronic Health Record (EHR) that is outcome focussed, data driven and patient centred.

Mayden’s flagship product – iaptus– is customised to meet the clinical demands of healthcare services by focusing on features that bring the most benefits to services, clinicians and patients. Psychological therapy services across Australia also use iaptus. Customers include those delivering NewAccess services developed by Beyond Blue. iaptus also supports services such as diabetes remission, weight management and gambling addiction.

Last Chance - Help us shape HIC 2024

HIC is the premier event in our calendar and we are excited to be bringing it back in 2024! We need your valued input to ensure the conference addresses your learning needs. Whether you have attended in the past or haven’t yet had the opportunity to attend one of these conferences, we would love your feedback.

Please take a few minutes to complete this brief survey to help shape your conference and tell us what you do and do not want to see at HIC. We are keen to improve our offering and will be guided by your responses. While responses are anonymous, all survey respondents can enter a draw to win a complimentary registration for HIC 2024 in Brisbane in August!

COMPLETE SURVEY