14 | THE QUARTERLY Q1 2023 New Era for College with the introduction of Digital Health Committee 15 How would you describe Digital Health? The enabling of better health outcomes via technology. What does Digital Health mean to you? Why are you so passionate about Digital Health? I am the only Dr in a family of engineers, my daily life and dinner conversations were about system-thinking and process improvement via computing when I was growing up. Fast forward to when I was practicing as a health provider, the role of technology was evident to me pretty early in my career. We rely on a lot of manual processes and repetitive tasks, let alone very old data, to do our jobs and I think this is where technology can really assist all of us across the health and care ecosystem, especially patients and their families. How important is it for RACMA to take the lead in the Digital Health space? When I first started in this role, there were no formal positions and in fact, I was the first CMIOwhen that role didn’t even exist in Australia. As I continued to work in the area it was pretty clear to me that this was an area of more study and skills and RACMA is a clear match for preparing the medical clinical informaticists of the future. What attracted you to take up your role as the inaugural Digital Health Committee co-chair? Well, I think I have been advocating for RACMA to take this on and lead the conversation so as soon as the opportunity arose I thought I better step up and help move the dial. What are some of your initial goals/tasks for the Digital Health Committee? I think the task ahead of us is not a small one. Information technology hasbecomeentrenched inour daily lives and theCOVID19pandemic provided a catalyst for the rapid adoption of technologies. We need to think about what streams of work will enable ALL medical administrators feel confident in managing technology now and in the future and then what sub speciality areas we need to develop so that RACMA can support those seeking to train further in the area. What are the challenges you can see that RACMA, and the field of medical administration in general, will face in the future? And particularly when it comes to Digital Health The WHO released the Global Strategy on Digital Health and adopted in 2020, presenting us all with a roadmap and a challenge to take on digital solutions as key enablers of better outcomes for all. Technology is not an addition, but a must for all strategies, and as it continues to develop in areas such as ML and AI, the challenge will be to ensure that we have a robust clinical and corporate governance framework wrapped around it, particularly data management and governance. In order to achieve this, we need skilled medical administrators leading the conversation and now is the time to do it. I am really looking forward to working with my peers to support RACMA, I can’t wait! Creating a real presence for RACMA in Digital Health The College Board recognises RACMAMembers are uniquely positioned to lead the evolving and increasing digitisation of health, ensuring its effectiveness and efficiency and the quality and safety of health services and patients. After much consultation and discussion, the Board decided the best way forward in this space for the College was to form a Digital Health Policy and Advocacy Sub Committee (DHPASC). To start this process the Board has appointed Dr Monica Trujillo and Dr Oliver Daly as the inaugural co-Chairs for the DHPASC. Dr Monica Trujillo is Chief Health Officer for Telstra Health and Dr Oliver Daly is Digital transformation and informatics lead - Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Western Health and Clinical Informatics Associate, Centre for Digital Transformation of Health at University of Melbourne. Both Dr Trujillo and Dr Daly are active participants in the Australian Institute of Digital Health. An Expression of Interest (EoI) process is currently being undertaken to select inaugural members of the DHPASC. The purpose of DHPASC is to contribute to leadership and vision for achieving accessible, high-quality and safe health services and systems through policy and advocacy initiatives that utilise digital health and the medical leadership and management expertise of RACMA Members to: Improve health outcomes. Influence policy to improve accessible, high-quality and safe health services. Support RACMAMembers to undertake their leadership role. Strengthen the health, well-being and safety of RACMAMembers. Strengthen the health, well-being and safety of the medical profession. Facilitate the medical workforce and health care systems to be supported by the highest standard of qualified medical leadership and management. Contribute to the development andmaintenance of amedical workforce that provides high-quality, safe and equitable care and services. Facilitate and enable development of health services. Ensure that DH is considered in all RACMA committees, policies, procedures and activities. Advice RACMA on DH topics to be considered in RACMA Education and Training programs. How would you describe Digital Health? The goal of Digital Health is to implement technology that improves all aspects of the quadruple aims of health system improvement - the health of the population, the experience of receiving care, the experience of providing care and reduction in the cost of health care. This improvement is a transformation journey not an endpoint, so will continuously evolve with the needs of the health system and community. What does Digital Health mean to you? Why are you so passionate about Digital Health? We are at an exciting point with significant investment and innovation in digital health. While acknowledging the current frustration with user interfaces, data entry and inefficient clinicalEMR workflows, over time there will be more seamless data collection and presentation of clinical information. And this is not just an opportunity to adopt new technology, but one in which we can redesign our clinical care workflows to take advantage of reduced duplicate clinical documentation, increased data sharing and integration between systems, and the collation and analysis of data from a range of information systems to provide individual patient clinical insights and an expanding frontier of big-data, realworld, population-based research. With the addition of predictive, diagnostic and clinical decision support, introduced in an evidencebased manner, this will reinforce the role of clinicians spending their time supporting patients with interpretation of the significant increase in health information available and providing patientcentred care. How important is it for RACMA to take the lead in the Digital Health space? Inmany ways RACMA has been at the forefront of digital health over several decades through the vision and leadership shown by many of our fellows. RACMA has an important role in recognising this wellspring of experience and facilitating professional recognition, ensuring medical leaders are trained in Digital Health principles and practice, and advocating for those medical leaders to be at the table when the health system makes decisions about Digital Health commissioning, design, implementation, and ongoing development. This will ensure technology is introduced that benefits patient care, those providing it and the system at large. What attracted you to take up your role as the inaugural Digital Health Committee co-chair? To have the opportunity to bring RACMA fellows together to establish a shared vision for the professional development and recognition of medical digital health leaders, unitedwith key external stakeholders, is a great honour. I am committed to ensuring that medical leaders are empowered to inform evidence-based investment in Digital Health and that clinicians are supported through the transformation challenges, to best support patients and the health system. What are some of your initial goals/tasks for the Digital Health Committee? The initial goal is to establish a sub-committee of members with experience in Digital health curriculum, training and professional development; professional recognition, credentialing and accreditation; research and clinical informatics, medical informatics leadership, and digital health transformation, implementation and change management. This team will work together to update the RACMA Digital Health position statement, inform the current curriculum review and work with other organisations such as the Australian Institute of Digital Health to develop professional development pathways and establish professional recognition for medical informatics leaders. What are the challenges you can see that RACMA, and the field of medical administration in general, will face in the future? And particularly when it comes to Digital Health Thebiggest challenge is therateof changeacross somanyareasof the health system, the technology andDigital Health options, the scale of investment. To achieve integration within and between institutions, medical leaders need to be aligning their digital strategies with a tenyear horizon to reflect the return on investment. This needs to be informed by knowledge of the technical capacity and limitations of health information systems, how to best use informatics to improve care, understanding the application of Digital Health to quality improvement including clinical decision support, and the change management principles that apply to transforming clinical services to leverage Digital Health. Dr Oliver Daly - Co-chair Digital Health Dr Monica Trujillo - Co-chair Digital Health
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