The digital journey of healthcare, has resulted in many changes in the way healthcare is conceived and delivered in Australia and internationally. With this comes challenges, but equally significant opportunities to continue to shape healthcare. Strategic planning in health informatics for the introduction and management of systems and innovations, their evaluation, along with the essential furthering education of healthcare practitioners, is essential at micro, meso and macro levels. Within Australian digital health and informatics practice, the current directional driver is Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy to be achieved by 2022. The annual Australian national Health Informatics Conference (HIC), Australia’s premier health informatics event, is a key avenue for developing, promoting and maintaining key 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, collaborate, educate and share their knowledge to drive innovative thinking, to enhance services, improve data-driven decision making, and allow greater consumer involvement.

This year we have focussed on the following ten key themes that underpin a fully digital healthcare sector: Analytics and the Learning Health System; Clinical Informatics; Digital Health Workforce Development; Health Policy, Ethics and Business Models; Informatics in Health Professional Education; Innovations, Informaticians and Digital Health Entrepreneurship; Integrated and Connected Care; Interoperability and Informatics Infrastructure; Participatory Medicine and Consumer Informatics; and System Implementations and Digital Hospitals.

The papers in this volume reflect these themes, highlighting the cutting-edge research evidence, technology updates, and innovations that are supporting 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. They emphasise the central role that digital health plays in our current and future healthcare organisations..wherever they be.

This year’s program maintains the high-standard of papers for which the conference is well-known. All papers were double blind-peer reviewed by three experts in the field of health informatics. These volunteer reviewers are prominent academics, digital health, and industry specialists. The contribution of ACHI in supporting this review process is gratefully acknowledged. Similar contributions made by many senior and experienced members of HISA 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 29 papers were selected for inclusion in this volume. We congratulate all the authors on their contribution and commend them to you, the reader.

Elizabeth Cummings

Mark Merolli

Louise K. Schaper