Healthcare planners and governments across the globe are involved in efforts to stimulate innovation and to reform health systems as a means of enhancing the delivery of safe, effective and quality care to patients. Information and communication technology (ICT) is a critical component of health system innovation and a key stimulus for reform. This is because the introduction of ICT is much more than just a technical taskit involves new ways of working, networking and organising globally. The Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) with the support of the Australasian College of Health Informatics (ACHI) have continued to be in the forefront of efforts to promote ICT-enabled healthcare reform and innovation in Australia. The Australian National Health Informatics Conference (HIC) is Australia's premier health informatics event bringing together researchers, industry groups and healthcare providers from Australian and internationally, providing the opportunity to display and share cutting edge research evidence, technology updates and innovations.

The theme for HIC 2015 is “Driving reform: Digital health is everyone's business”. The conference highlights the role that health informatics can play in the development of a smart digital healthcare system to drive reform and to meet increasing demands and financial pressures. In today's environment health services are being increasingly technology-enabled so as to:

• Address increasing consumer demands and expectations

• Provide relevant, appropriate and effective real-time information to clinical practitioners

• Enhance the management and monitoring of healthcare delivery performance

The papers in this volume provide valuable research evidence and information about the diverse role that ICT plays in the health, aged and community care sectors, across Australia, New Zealand and internationally. The papers represents a wide spectrum of work encompassing major theoretical concepts, examples of key applications of new technologies and important new developments in the field of health informatics. Taken together the volume makes an important contribution to the health informatics evidence base and the quality development of ICT.

This year's Health Informatics Conference continues and augments the double blind peer review process established in 2011 in a previous volume. All papers were reviewed by three experts in the field of health informatics, selected as prominent academics and industry specialists. The assistance of the Australasian College of Health Informatics in supporting this process through the voluntary efforts of its Fellows is gratefully acknowledged, as is the contribution made by many senior and experienced members of the Health Informatics Society of Australia. This phase of reviewing resulted in the provisional acceptance of 26 from a much expanded submission field of 51 papers. The Scientific Program Committee then undertook a validation process for all such papers that were resubmitted in amended form, to ensure that reviewers' recommendations were appropriately addressed or rebutted. In total 26 papers were included in this volume. Congratulations to all the authors of the papers in this volume.

Andrew Georgiou

Heather Grain

Louise K. Schaper