Inaugural listening forum opens the conversation with community groups

Led by the Clinical and Consumer Engagement and Clinical Governance division at the Australian Digital Health Agency.

Representatives from 23 community organisations recently took up the opportunity to provide insights into the challenges facing their organisations and members, and to identify new ways to deliver more effective and efficient digital health together.

Led by the Clinical and Consumer Engagement and Clinical Governance division at the Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency), the inaugural Community and Consumer Listening Forum in Sydney initiated an important and ongoing conversation with community groups on how digital health will impact the individuals they support and represent.

The event also provided these groups with an update about the Agency, My Health Record and the National Digital Health Strategy.

Attendees represented a diverse group of community and consumer organisations. These groups support people with chronic illness, disability and mental health conditions, as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, older people, rural and remote residents, carers, the LGBTI community and young people.

Harry Iles-Mann, consumer advocate and Co-Chair of the Agency’s Product Improvement Group, spoke at the forum about his own lived experience of the healthcare system over 19 years, and the importance of patients having access to accurate and actionable information and resources.

“Digital health broadly, the National Digital Health Strategy, and by extension My Health Record, are key foundational elements in helping to transform the traditional models of practice - taking the practices from a fragmented, and often impersonal approach, to an approach that fundamentally prioritises patient-centred care and the practice of consumer co-design,” Mr Iles-Mann said.

Insights from the forum will be circulated to forum attendees and Agency partners. Updates on how the insights from the forum have been implemented into the Agency’s work will also be discussed at the next Listening Forum in November 2018.

Attendees at the inaugural Community and Consumer Listening Forum in Sydney.

Agency CEO Tim Kelsey speaking with Harry Iles-Mann and attendees at the recent Listening Forum.

Chief Clinical Information Officer, Dr Monica Trujillo (centre) with Nettie and Vanessa from Cystic Fibrosis Australia at the Listening Forum.