We can’t keep doing the same things and hoping for better outcomes

The case for productivity improvements across the Australian economy has been well articulated in recent months. Unfortunately, our experience over the past seven years demonstrates that incremental policy reform, a culture of risk aversion and the lack of genuine partnerships with the private sector will not meaningfully reposition Australia’s economy for productivity, growth and innovation. 

We can’t keep doing the same things and hoping for different outcomes. We need bold reform. To this end, we welcomed the Productivity Commission’s recent 5 Pillars of Productivity Inquiries. The Productivity Commission is well placed to support meaningful change and these discussion papers open a forum for a much-needed debate that will have critical ramifications for the future of the Australian economy.

When it comes to the health sector, we shared the following four recommendations in response to the Productivity Commission’s consultation.

Establish a national health and medical data blueprint

We believe Australia requires a national health and medical data blueprint – underpinned by sustained long term funding commitments – to define the national health data infrastructure and assets required to future proof Australia’s health and medical research capabilities.

Australia is uniquely positioned to lead in data-driven healthcare delivery, medical research and innovation; however, we need bold reform if we are to take advantage of the opportunities in front of us as a nation.

The convergence of artificial intelligence, biotechnology and national health data assets offers a generational opportunity to improve health outcomes, enhance public services, and fuel the economy. However, without unified national coordination, Australia risks engineering complexity instead of coherence – duplicating capabilities, fragmenting impact and losing momentum.

Create a pragmatic and enabling national health data regulatory and governance environment 

There is a clear need to develop a regulatory and governance environment that facilitates secure data use, while aligning with international efforts to enable cross-border data transfer with appropriate safeguards.

In support of the above recommendation, in August 2025 the DHCRC released a report, Health Data is a National Asset: Observations into Unlocking the value of Australia’s Health and Medical Data for Research, Improvement and Innovation, which identifies the need for an ambitious, long-term, unified blueprint to unlock Australia’s potential as a leader in data-driven healthcare.

Australia’s health data is underused but holds enormous value. This report is designed to start a national discussion on unlocking the value of Australia’s Health and Medical Data assets. It highlights why unlocking our health data remains a challenge and provides a starting point for a national conversation on how it can improve both health outcomes and economic performance.

Australia is well positioned to be a pioneer in research and innovation that sets the benchmark in the use of health data but the time for action is now. For too long we have been constrained by siloed systems and ambiguous data pathways across jurisdictions and organisations, creating bottlenecks that slow research, hinder innovation, and delay the translation of knowledge into practice.

Without unified national coordination, across government, service providers, researchers and industry, Australia risks engineering complexity instead of coherence – duplicating capabilities, fragmenting impact and losing momentum. 

Progress outstanding critical aged care policy reform

There remains outstanding policy reform for aged care, called out by the Royal Commission into Quality and Safety in Aged Care, which is material to the proposed policy reform recommendations for aged care and the NDIS in this interim report. 

In Australia today, there is no consistency in the way that the functional needs of older people are assessed; there is a lack of clinical data standards available for use in aged care; there is no minimum data set to support quality outcome reporting; and there is lack of alignment and interoperability by aged care providers (and hence consumers) with other health care sectors.

These longstanding gaps significantly contribute to many of the quality, safety and efficiency shortcomings experienced by individuals, clinicians and service providers of our aged care system – many of which are well documented by the Royal Commission.

Without these data and digital foundations, policy reforms to address regulation of the quality and safety of care provision, in the context of a productivity lens, will be significantly hampered. 

Whilst these shortcomings were called out in the Royal Commission they have not been addressed yet in the national reforms to aged care or by the many ad hoc initiatives instituted by governments in response the Royal Commission’s findings. 

Develop a Three-Year Roadmap for Aged Care Data Standardisation

We are calling for a three-year roadmap for the adoption of a standardised national approach to the assessment of the functional needs of older people; and the adoption of clinical data standards in aged care as part of the definition by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) of a minimum data set to support quality outcome reporting.

In its report, the Productivity Commission makes the comment (p7) that “Australians are getting better outcomes, but not necessarily more care services, per dollar spent.” In truth, we cannot really say older Australians are getting better outcomes because there is no reliable means of measuring this. New mandatory quality indicators (QI) represent the very worst of an efficient or reliable scheme for measuring care outcomes, simply because a) there is no standardised approach to the documentation of assessed care needs; and b) there is no efficient process for capturing or reporting these QIs. 

Building on our experience from our flagship Aged Care Data Compare (ACDC) research project, the DHCRC is now investing in a scalable solution to support the generation, use and reporting of evidence-based QIs.  

Repeating the callout from the Royal Commission, we are combining intellectual property from the ACDC project, with the emerging national data standards and technologies being promoted by the Australian Digital Health Agency – HL7 FHIR standard for data sharing, supported by SMART on FHIR a web standard for interoperability – to develop a quality indicator (QI) application that can launch within any aged care vendor clinical information system.  

We’re calling this new tool, Kinnexus.

Our goal is to demonstrate to government, providers, and consumers alike that in Australia we have the technology, skills and leadership to move to national monitoring of care quality, using consistent, risk adjusted quality indicators.  This is not a ‘nice to have’ policy reform but an issue that is holding back our understanding of the quality, safety and reliability of care delivered to older Australians. It is also negatively impacting the ability of carer and providers to deliver quality care effectively.

We warmly welcome the Productivity Commission consultation papers and believe each of these four initiatives would have a significant impact on improving the productivity and efficiency of the health system – a critical pillar of the Australian economy.

It is encouraging to see similar consultations in R&D – a key driver of productivity – with the Strategic Examination of Research & Development (SERD) and the draft National Health & Medical Research Strategy 2026–2036.

However, while blueprints, roadmaps and discussion papers are important, it is only when they serve a clear purpose – setting a clear direction toward a better future with practical, translatable and collaborative initiatives.

Have your say: Do you agree Australia has technology, skills and leadership to move to national monitoring of care quality, using consistent, risk adjusted quality indicators?

Yes or No and please comment further.