As Australia advances its healthcare through digital health strategies, EMR expansion, and virtual care, a profound truth remains: patients must feel genuinely known, respected, and empowered. At the 2025 Digital Health Festival, our interactive session explored what it means to feel “known, informed, and empowered”. Participants (executives, clinicians, researchers, and technologists) consistently emphasised human-centred care as foundational, not optional.

Feeling known: trust through personalisation

Participants identified clear indicators of feeling “known”: not repeating their health history, receiving personalised care, and clinicians accessing accurate, timely information. One attendee summarised:

“When the clinician already knew my history, I felt less anxious and more trusting.”

Such reflections highlight systemic issues like siloed data and poor interoperability, which fracture patient experiences, erode trust, and heighten anxiety.

Clinician perspective: better outcomes

Clinicians in the room at the event reinforced these insights, emphasising trust and continuity. Patients who feel known are more engaged, honest, and compliant, directly improving clinical outcomes. Efficiency also rises, as one clinician succinctly stated:

“Personalised. Efficient. Trust. Better outcomes.”

Starting with data: integration and standards

Central to feeling known is seamless, secure data sharing. Health services must prioritise integrated digital systems to enable continuity across providers. Robust data standards and digital identity frameworks underpin effective information flows, ensuring the right clinician can access the right data at the right time.

Initiatives like the Consumer Data Right (CDR) and Digital ID demonstrate national commitment. The formation of the Data Standards Advisory Committee (DSAC), tasked with guiding standards for CDR and Digital ID, underscores the necessity of secure, interoperable data to create coherent, trusted patient experiences. The DSAC’s role includes setting standards for digital technologies, information security, and data sharing—critical for genuine patient-centric care.

Empowerment through informed choice

Empowerment emerged strongly, emphasising choice, understanding, and autonomy:

“Give me choice and let me understand what it means. That’s what makes me feel in control.”

Digital systems and workflows must therefore be inclusive, flexible, and transparent. Effective data standards support clear, consistent information presentation and robust consent mechanisms, foundational to CDR principles. DSAC’s call for expertise in digital identity, standards processes, digital policy, consumer rights, and privacy further highlights the complex, trust-focused nature of digital healthcare.

AI and digital trust: transparency and governance

As AI integration in healthcare grows, ethical, transparent system design becomes urgent. Patients and clinicians must understand AI-driven decisions. Without explainable, interpretable AI systems aligned with safety and governance standards, trust and thus adoption, will falter. Designing AI to strengthen, rather than undermine, clinician-patient relationships is essential.

Human-centred care: systemic necessity

Human-centred healthcare improves outcomes, reduces friction, and enhances satisfaction. For health leaders and policymakers, priorities include:

Ensuring interoperability through robust national data standards.

Measuring clinical outcomes alongside experience, trust, and empowerment.

• Implementing co-designed service models and user-tested digital tools informed by consumer advocacy.
• Ensuring interoperability through robust national data standards.

Escient’s strategic framework embodies three core principles:

• Know Me: Deeply understand patient needs.
• Inform Me: Provide timely, relevant information.
• Empower Me: Enable confident, informed actions beyond clinical settings.

Healthcare’s future lies in connections—not just between digital systems, but between people, their experiences, and outcomes. Embedding human-centred care at every level of health reform will transform trust from an intangible ideal into a measurable, repeatable reality, anchored firmly in secure, interoperable, and well-governed data standards.

About the authors:

Dr Paul Cooper is an educator, researcher and associate consultant with Escient, specialising in digital health and digital transformation. 

Lumai Tingey is a Director at Escient with extensive experience leading digital health initiatives across state government and local health networks. 

Have your say

Dr Paul Cooper writes “Designing AI to strengthen, rather than undermine, clinician-patient relationships is essential.”

Agree or Disagree, and How can we achieve this?