The last 12 months have been like none other for the Australian healthcare sector. The emergence of COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of digital health technologies and amplified the need for healthcare leaders to create seamless digital experiences to make life easier for clinicians and patients.

A rapid shift to remote working was a monumental challenge for the world’s IT systems and infrastructure. Within a short timeframe, workers had to be set up, securely connected and ready to work from home. 

2020 — Year of the Nurse and Midwife — was intended to be a global celebration of the critical and central role nurses and midwives play in health care. But a global pandemic saw celebration plans put on ice, as Australia’s largest healthcare workforce instead worked tirelessly in gruelling and unprecedented circumstances to fight for the lives of their patients. 

ANDHealth has released a report demonstrating that Australia’s emerging digital health industry is in a strong position to tap into growing global demand for digital health solutions.

In this report we've compiled insights from over 100 Australian healthcare professionals, find out what they think are the major innovations, challenges and opportunities that will fundamentally transform healthcare and patient experience in the coming years.

Imagine a time when an ambulance will respond to a Triple-0 call-out and drive itself. Satellite imagery and artificial intelligence will calculate the fastest path, paramedics will work in the back performing life-saving interventions, other cars on the road will be alerted of its approach, collision avoidance technology will reduce the risk of an accident along the route, and essential patient data will be distributed to clinicians, all before the vehicle parks itself at the emergency department door.

That time isn’t far away and health systems, governments, regulators, insurers and even urban planners are being urged to prepare now for the disruption autonomous vehicles (AVs) will create.

Like the light of Florence Nightingale’s lamp, digital hospitals are beginning to light the landscape of healthcare in the Information Age.

As terms such as “smart hospital”, “hospital of the future” and “paperless hospital” become commonplace with every new hospital build, design needs to evolve to keep pace with this technological revolution.

2018 has been a year of rapid development and change for the Australian healthcare sector. With healthcare faring well in a number of State Budgets, and the Federal Budget announced earlier this year, we’re seeing billions of dollars injected into designing, developing and modernising healthcare nation-wide.