Beyond the black stump: rapid reviews of health research issues affecting regional, rural and remote Australia

In reply: We thank Versace and colleagues for their interest in our MJA supplement chapter1 and note and welcome their observation about the importance of using existing data sources to understand the location and distribution of health workers in Australia.

A recent report predicts that in 2028 there will continue to be a significant shortages of essential health services in rural and remote Australia.2 Considering the disparity in health outcomes between rural and metropolitan areas, this is an area of concern and deserves attention. However, density of health services and provider‐to‐population ratios do not tell the whole story. It is crucial that health workforce data are linked to data on health needs and inequalities to tailor appropriate health workforce development initiatives. The geographic imbalance is a concern of equity and effectiveness of services, and any solution will require long term political commitment.3

Although it is essential that high quality, linked, longitudinal data sources are available, these are not sufficient for addressing the maldistribution issue. With an increase in the amount of health care data, robust methods for extracting and analysing the large amounts of information contained in different data sources are of critical importance to health services and public health generally. Research focused on developing novel methods for analysing these data, such as sophisticated workforce modelling approaches and machine learning techniques, is therefore central to achieving the greatest benefit from the data sources.

We support Versace and colleagues’ observation about the need to conduct longitudinal research at scale to understand the effectiveness of successive government policy to enable to health care workers to practise in rural and remote Australia.4 Using linked data to track students, the Nursing and Allied Health Graduate Outcome Tracking (NAHGOT) collaboration5 is an opportunity for rurally placed academics to conduct high quality research to understand the effectiveness of rural exposure for the future workforce in placement in rural and remote areas and subsequent practice location.