Expanding the evidence base in digital health

My Health Record will foster a more connected health system that will help prevent avoidable harm

Meredith AB Makeham · Angela Ryan

New digital health services and technologies are transforming how health care is provided and experienced in Australia

Steven J Hambleton · John Aloizos AM

My Health Record can support emergency department clinicians by providing timely and secure access to patients’ clinical histories

Paul Miles · Andrew Hugman · Angela Ryan · Fiona Landgren · Grace Liong

Sophisticated methodological approaches and measures for scaling up are key elements of effective evaluation

Janice S Biggs · Andrea Willcocks · Mitchell Burger · Meredith AB Makeham

Despite most Australians having most of their health‐related interactions in the primary care sector, primary care‐based research is disproportionately low. Access to quality EMR data, lack of resources to remunerate GPs, and a lack of understanding among some GPs of the value and importance of secondary use of EMR data are barriers to data sharing. Data extraction tools that enable ethical, secure and privacy‐protected access to routinely collected datasets nationally have been developed. The task now is to build trustworthy primary care data repositories for research that will provide researchers with timely access to quality‐assured general practice data. Linkage with other datasets could enable significant scale‐up of primary care‐based research in Australia, contributing new knowledge in public health, health promotion, economics and evidence‐based clinical care. Technologies that allow consumers to have greater control over how their data are used can provide better options to policy makers, hence investment in this area is essential. Educating clinicians and the public about the need for, and existence of, research based on de‐identified patient medical records has the potential to generate greater social licence and acceptance of this emerging area of study. This has the potential to generate significant gains in terms of service delivery, economics and patient health. We can “do the right thing” now, but we must never become complacent.

Rachel Canaway · Douglas IR Boyle · Jo‐Anne E Manski‐Nankervis · Jessica Bell · Jane S Hocking · Ken Clarke · Malcolm Clark · Jane M Gunn · Jon D Emery

The known: Large amounts of clinical data are collected in electronic health records (eHRs). This information is largely untapped by clinicians for purposes of performance review or professional development.

Tim Shaw · Anna Janssen · Roslyn Crampton · Fenton O'Leary · Philip Hoyle · Aaron Jones · Amith Shetty · Naren Gunja · Angus G Ritchie · Heiko Spallek · Annette Solman · Judy Kay · Meredith AB Makeham · Paul Harnett

Gaining value from decision support in electronic medication management systems requires a well evidenced approach

Johanna I Westbrook · Melissa T Baysari

Widespread adoption of digital health tools requires comprehensive evidence of their effectiveness and value

Andre Q Andrade · Elizabeth E Roughead

Improving the care experience with an e‐health tool that addresses patient and family priorities

Cheryl McCullagh · Melanie Keep · Anna Janssen · Hiran Selvadurai · Tim Shaw

Benefiting from genomics in health care depends on data sharing and digital health integration

David P Hansen · Marcel E Dinger · Oliver Hofmann · Natalie Thorne · Tiffany F Boughtwood

Specialist practices may benefit from the implementation framework and resources developed at Melbourne Hand Surgery

Jillian Tomlinson

My Health Record is an easy‐to‐use and effective clinical tool for specialists

Elizabeth Jackson

“A picture says a thousand words … especially when it's the patient's third language”

Marianne St Clair · David P Murtagh · John Kelly · Jeff Cook

Decision support tools driven by artificial intelligence are a new clinical method that clinicians need to embrace

Christopher Pearce · Adam McLeod · Natalie Rinehart · Robin Whyte · Elizabeth Deveny · Marianne Shearer