In 2025, artificial intelligence no longer sat at the edges of the health ecosystem. In Pulse+IT it earned a dedicated channel as it transformed almost every part of digital health: ambient clinical documentation, imaging analysis, coding support, scheduling, triage, patient communication tools, oncology informatics, administrative functions and mental health support services.
AI features became embedded this year in new product releases, routine software upgrades and standard procurement cycles, from early work to transform data use and boost clinical trials to emerging AI-powered imaging and AI-assisted cancer screening. Platforms added embedded assistants, including new capabilities in integration environments like HealthShare, and local innovators secured investment for frontier work in voice restoration and brain–computer interfaces.
In the public sector, one expert warned, the effective uptake of AI would rely on the development of a strong data culture. Addressing the Public Health Association of Australia’s annual conference in September, European Public Health Association Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence Section Vice-President Stefan Buttigieg urged attendees to “rethink your priorities and start from the level of data culture. It’s only then that we can really unlock the promise of AI for public health.”
Hospitals trialled speech-to-text and translation tools, reflected in workflow gains highlighted in AI-enabled documentation work, while primary care adopted ambient tools to ease administrative pressure. Orion Health launched Concerto AI – “Data plus AI equals healthcare transformed, in our view and we’re bringing more tools to aid clinicians so no patient falls through the cracks,” Orion Health CEO Brad Porter told Pulse+IT.
Vendors positioned AI less as an innovation and more as an expected layer in clinical and corporate systems. Primary Health Networks and state agencies ran a growing number of small AI pilots in referral management, remote monitoring, waiting-list analytics and care coordination, all underpinned by ongoing discussion about data quality, workforce capability and standards for safe adoption.
Health service digitisation keeps momentum
Alongside AI adoption, health services advanced a wide range of digital modernisation programs. These included new research platforms like the PURPLE system for pancreatic cancer, electronic patient record upgrades, digital hospital builds, command centres, statewide data platforms, oncology systems, imaging modernisation and pathology replacement programs.
Unlike earlier years defined by rapid response or urgent uplift, the 2025 pattern was structured and predictable. Programs progressed through phased rollouts, staged clinical adoption work and scheduled infrastructure upgrades. Virtual models expanded in a similar fashion, from growth in virtual pharmacy services following activity in WA Country Health to new paediatric digital models supported through virtualKIDS and acute innovations such as virtual hospital pilots in Melbourne.
Virtual care stabilised into a more mature model. Remote monitoring remained routine in most states, while digital homecare, telehealth workflow upgrades and connected care coordination tools were increasingly embedded in day-to-day service planning. Additional capability continued to emerge in niche areas, including psychosocial support delivered through platforms like TraumaConnect and statewide services continued to recalibrate after inquiries highlighted gaps in core infrastructure, such as the lack of progress on NSW patient record upgrades.
Cybersecurity and privacy remain the risk environment beneath all innovation
The threat landscape continued to shape digital health investment and program design, reinforced by findings that many organisations remained unprepared for ransomware, as highlighted in a sector-wide ransomware preparedness survey.
Cyber warnings, policy activity and privacy commentary appeared consistently across the year. Health services, vendors and government agencies referenced the need for stronger governance, security testing and resilience as systems became more interconnected. This ranged from targeted uplift in allied health, supported by PHN-funded cybersecurity programs, to critical findings in audits such as the Queensland Health cybersecurity review.
AI-related privacy and safety concerns also emerged. Discussions around data provenance, model transparency and responsible use were increasingly tied to broader cyber and privacy requirements. Analysis of sector vulnerabilities continued to highlight that security gaps remain the biggest risk for AI in healthcare.
Cybersecurity became the implicit foundation for every digital health program, reinforced by new investment measures, including February’s national cyber security boost for the health sector.
Standards and interoperability
The data sharing resources being produced through the Sparked program, led by CSIRO’s Australian eHealth Research Centre, are already underpinning how our health system will share health information between clinical systems to benefit all Australians right across the care economy, Health Minister Mark Butler said at the opening of HIC2025.
“Congratulations to all Sparked members who have contributed more than 21,000 hours of in-kind time in the first two years of this program alone. Thanks to your collaborative efforts Sparked is now the world’s most active FHIR-accelerator program.”
Addressing the Sparked online symposium in May, First Assistant Secretary, Medicare Benefits and Digital Health at the Department of Health and Aged Care Daniel McCabe said Sparked represented “how we bring technology together with people that need to use it, to ensure we can improve the health and wellbeing of all Australians.”
“We are working with the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to leverage Sparked to build out our national health care data standards, which will support us with service delivery planning at a local, state and national level, and support health care professionals by creating feedback loops so that they can deliver true value-based quality care”.
Australia is already using Sparked FHIR accelerator outcomes to drive innovation, the National Health Information Management Conference heard in October. Sparked builds on a standard called FHIR – fast healthcare interoperable resources – which is increasingly how data is shared and exchanged in healthcare. Speaker Dr David Hansen, CEO and Research Director of the Australian e-Health Research Centre at CSIRO said: “So the data that goes into electronic health records, probably isn’t at the moment structured using FHIR resources, but when it’s shared, it’s going to be increasingly shared using FHIR as the official exchange between systems.”
FHIR and SNOMED are the “rocket fuel for AI,” CSIRO’s interoperability leader Kate Ebrill told a Dedalus-supported webinar in November, which explored how global standards are transforming connected healthcare.
“Unless we get a good set of clean, quality data, we are not necessarily going to have the quality AI tools that we want,” she said. “If we want ethical AI in Australia, it must be built on data that represents the diversity of our population. We must build up sovereign AI capability. These standards give us the structure and the ground truth to do that.”
Meanwhile, the government was urged to directly fund vendor interoperability implementation across the health sector with a proposed $20m Interoperability Acceleration Fund.
Medical Software Industry Association CEO Emma Hossack told Pulse+IT in July a major blocker to vendors implementing interoperability standards was a lack of ongoing centralised funding. “In relation to interoperability, one of the main problems we all know is that it is not a technical problem – it’s a sustainability problem. That means that there has to be incentives until the efficiencies are realised – not handouts – but where development goes beyond the BAU requirements of working with the government, this should be rewarded,” Ms Hossack said.
Genomics and precision health becoming mainstream
Precision health underpinned by genomics is no longer niche or “future medicine” – it is being embedded into routine care and national strategies. This year Pulse+IT dedicated a new channel to precision health to curate the most interesting developments of the year as we report on them.
However, among the copious number of good news stories, there are signs Australia and New Zealand are lagging on precision health when it comes to governance and policy. “The convergence of AI, public health, and personalised medicine isn’t coming, it is by all accounts, already here”, says Weekend Viewpoint contributor Dr Tom Varghese. “But healthcare systems in Australia and New Zealand are not prepared for the questions it raises, nor the strategic and tactical overhaul it demands,” he writes.
There was one giant leap for governance: the launch of Genomics Australia. Respected sector leader Tiffany Boughtwood was appointed Australian Health Genomics Commissioner following the launch of Genomics Australia on July 1, a week after the government released the draft National Health Genomics Policy Framework and Implementation Plan 2026 – 2030 for consultation. The vision for the draft plan is that all people living in Australia benefit from appropriately embedded genomics within the health system.
In an important milestone following extensive lobbying, legislation was passed to ban life insurers from discriminating against applicants based on genetic testing.
A system settling into its next phase
Two years into the National Digital Health Strategy 2023-25, Australians were already experiencing the benefits directly, Australian Digital Health Agency CEO Amanda Cattermole said on the release of the action and impact report in November. She said consumer participation in My Health Record grew in 2024-25, achieving a 47.6 per cent increase, continuing a sustained upward trend. At 30 June 2025, there were nearly 131 million record views, up from 88.7 million since 30 June 2024.
It has not been a year of dramatic shocks in digital health. Rather, a year of steady progression: AI settling into mainstream workflows, digital hospital programs and virtual models progressing in structured cycles, with cybersecurity shaping investment and program design.
With AI no longer an outlier and virtual care fully embedded, the next phase of digital health is likely to focus even more strongly on standards, data architecture and national infrastructure.
Read more: Australian digital health thought leadership
Adopting AI for clinical coding by Sallyanne Wissmann, CEO, HIMAA
The personal care concierges made possible by agentic AI, by Jenny Reichard, Senior Industry Executive Healthcare, Genesys
Embedding trust in digital health, by Will Sharpe, Chief Information Security Officer for Telstra Health
Productivity in healthcare by Annette Schmiede, CEO, Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre
Agentic AI in Australian healthcare: Navigating the next frontier by Dr Paul Cooper, Director, Longboardfella Consulting
Connected care deserves our commitment by Anja Nikolic, CEO Australasian Institute of Digital Health
Unlocking the power of generative AI, by Ian Manovel, Head of Health Fujitsu ANZ
Data the lifeline to Australia’s healthcare struggles by Charlie Farah, Field CTO – Analytics/AI, Qlik
Smart infrastructure, smarter healthcare by Kavin Arnasalon, Head of Government, Enterprise and Business at Optus
Building the next generation of healthcare leaders, by Miranda Grace,CEO, Australian Association of Practice Management
Where public health ends and personalised medicine begins by Dr Tom Varghese, Orion Health Global Product Marketing and Growth Manager
Smarter procurement — the missing link in Australia’s digital health future by Annette Schmiede, CEO Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre
How advice & guidance models of care can transform non-admitted services in Australia by A/Professor Vikram Palit, CEO of Consultmed
Australia’s cancer challenge: Can AI unlock precise and personalised treatment at scale? by Ian Manovel, Head of Healthcare for Oceania at Fujitsu
Re-imagining hospitals: Why end-to-end digital health matters by Tim Macdonald, Director of Sales, Clintel Systems
Let’s have the conversation about consent by Dr Patrick Hart, Clinical Product Owner, Concentric Health
*Note to our readers: With the wealth of innovation and development across the digital health ecosystem, our year-in-review articles are highly curated and written to reflect some of the key themes and milestones for the year and are not intended to be a comprehensive summary.
