Preface

Integrating and connecting health services, practitioners and consumers is the critical step in realising the improvements promised by digital health. This is seen in the way the health informatics community is taking on a central role in the digital transformation of the healthcare sector, with health informatics roles being increasingly recognised as critical to that success. This is further emphasised in Safe, Seamless and Secure (Australia's National Digital Health Strategy), where a “workforce confidently using digital health technologies to deliver health and care” is acknowledged as one of the seven strategic priority outcomes to be achieved by 2022

https://www.digitalhealth.gov.au/australias-national-digital-health-strategy.

. Secondary use of health data has led to ground breaking research discoveries, and the increased reliance upon all types of digital media has established health informatics as a viable specialisation in healthcare. The national Health Informatics Conference (HIC), Australia's premier health informatics event, is a key avenue for developing, promoting and maintaining these partnerships. The conference, organised by the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA), with the support of the Australasian College of Health Informatics (ACHI), provides the ideal professional and social environment for clinicians, researchers, health IT professionals, industry and consumers to integrate, educate and share their knowledge to drive innovative thinking, to enhance services and allow greater consumer involvement. This year's theme, ‘Today's best practice, innovation today and preparing for tomorrow’, focusses on the important issues of connecting the system, being smart with data, and enhancing the practitioner and consumer experience in healthcare interactions.

The papers in this volume reflect this theme, highlighting the cutting-edge research evidence, technology updates and innovations that are seeing the digital transformation of the healthcare sector. The papers are indicative of the 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.

This year's program maintains the high standard of papers for which the conference is well-known. All papers were blind-peer reviewed by three experts in the field of health informatics. These reviewers are widely considered to be prominent academics, digital health and industry specialists. The contribution of the Australasian College of Health Informatics, particularly the voluntary participation of Fellows, in supporting this review process is gratefully acknowledged. Similar contributions made by many senior and experienced members of the Health Informatics Society of Australia are also acknowledged. Forty papers underwent the initial review and feedback process. Resubmitted papers were then validated by the Scientific Program Committee to ensure that reviewers' recommendations were appropriately addressed or rebutted. In total 30 papers were selected for inclusion in this volume. We congratulate all the authors on their contribution and commend them to the readers.

Elizabeth Cummings

Angela Ryan

Louise K. Schaper