The National Rural Health Alliance (the Alliance) calls on Government to establish the Rural Health Innovation and Evidence Hub (the Hub) — a national AI‑enhanced platform designed to collect, synthesise, and share lessons from rural health initiatives, research, grants, pilots, and models of care.
To establish the Hub, the Alliance seeks funding of $9.7 million (GST exclusive), over 4 years plus $1.6 million ongoing annually to cover IT platform development, Australian Journal of Rural Health (AJRH) and AI integration, governance and quality assurance, stakeholder engagement, testing, launch and marketing activities, and ongoing operation.
Australia currently lacks a coordinated, real‑time AI-enhanced national knowledge hub that translates learnings from government‑funded rural health programs, initiatives and research. Rural communities struggle to access solutions relevant to their context due to fragmented, inaccessible, or siloed information.
Some of the key benefits expected from establishing the Hub include:
- Leveraging the Alliance’s AJRH to build stronger evidence‑based policy for rural health, supported by a central, continuously updated repository for rural research, evidence, policy and outcomes of trials and evaluation.
- More effective rural health investment by reducing duplication and waste and enabling systematic learning from past programs and trials.
- Cross-sectoral collaboration and continuous knowledge exchange across rural Australia through a community of practice comprising rural communities and those who deliver healthcare, training and education and research.
- Greater digital inclusion and community empowerment in rural health decision‑making through a shared system for learning, enabled through a participatory platform.