Introduction
The National Rural Health Alliance commends the Australia Health Ministers’ Advisory Council
(AHMAC), via its Health Services Principal Committee and the Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare (AIHW) on providing a draft of the National Health Information Strategy – Framework (the
draft Framework) and welcomes the opportunity to provide a response.
The National Rural Health Alliance (the Alliance) is comprised of 44 member organisations. The
Alliance is committed to improving the health and wellbeing of the almost 7 million people living in
rural, regional and remote Australia. Our membership is diverse and geographically dispersed and
this reflects the complex nature of rural health. Members include consumer groups, Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander peak body organisations in the health sector, health professional organisations
and service providers. For a full list of our members see Appendix A.
In this response to the Draft Framework, the Alliance mostly agrees with the proposed opportunity
focus areas to improve health and wellbeing outcomes and access to health care for people living in
rural regional and remote Australia.
The Alliance supports that the National Health Information Strategy (NHIS) is important in providing
a unified direction for the health and disability sector to make better decisions about how to
improve the quality and availability of health information. The Alliance would like to draw AHMAC’s
attention to the following four priority opportunities with a focus on rural and remote communities:
- Data are used to drive better services and better health outcomes
- Data are fit for purpose
- Data are accessible
- Health information structure is agile and innovative
- Data support improvements in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples health