631 - AI, Workforce Enablement, and Women in Leadership: Highlights from HIC2026

0:00Peter Birch: Have you ever heard a term in digital health and just quietly had to Google it later? The Talking Health Tech Glossary has got you covered. We've got hundreds of terms in plain English explanations, written for our industry and all free to use. You don't even have to sign up for anything. Just go to talkinghealthtech.com slash glossary.

0:26Peter Birch: Welcome to the Talking Health Tech podcast. My name is Peter Birch. I'm here at HICC 2026, hosted by the Australasian Institute of Digital Health. In this episode, we're doing what we do best, having conversations with the speakers and the exhibitors that are changing the way healthcare is delivered. In this episode, you'll hear a couple of those conversations, but head over to our YouTube channel where you'll see a future playlist of all the discussions that we've had here at the event. Collaboration starts with a conversation, Team Health Tech. Oh, let's make it happen. I'm Dr. Ray Donovan. I'm the Chief Clinical Information Officer for eHealth Queensland.

0:58Also emergency doctor still, so do a day a week just to keep it real. So I love coming down to HIC for a couple of reasons. One, I always find it's really valuable in terms of being able to not just meet all your like-minded individuals, but also then hear some really amazing talks around where we're up to and what's happening in the digital health community. And it's just a really good networking and opportunity to continue to learn because it is a rapidly evolving space. It's definitely changed over the years and I always see HIC as being a really important opportunity to actually collaborate with everybody.

1:34Peter Birch: Yeah, a place to do it. What are the types of conversations that you're noticing out on the floor and with the community? One, probably because I'm passionate about it, is the workforce conversation around what it is that we actually need to support our staff in terms of actually wanting to work in the digital health sphere, whether it's clinicians or our technology counterparts or any others that are actually operating in this space. We are really trying to be making sure that we're supporting people so that they're learning, that they actually want to stay in this space. There's a lot of interest and there's a lot of passionate people.

2:07And so I think I tend to fall into those conversations quite a lot.

2:11Peter Birch: And you've got a team sharing some information here at HICC, is that right? Yeah, we've got a few of our team members. So I've got a couple of my clinical team and data team that are actually doing a presentation tomorrow on what we call the perinatal data collection validation tool. So this is actually embedding the ability to capture the data in real time around the perinatal period, which actually feeds into the perinatal data collection. So historically, it's been a very much a retrospective activity. And this is really a tool which allows clinicians to do a check and sort of improve their documentation in real time.

2:48So it actually streamlines and saves a lot of resource intense effort each month. So that's pretty exciting that the guys are being able to actually showcase the pilot work that they've done and the lessons they've learned. And then we've got another couple of our application specialists that are talking around some of the medication space and things that they've been doing in the EMR and our automatic drug dispensing cabinets as well. So they were presenting earlier today.

3:08Peter Birch: Very useful. Hey, I was just thinking back on the point around enablement of workforce and that kind of sort of education space. But I wanted to understand a little bit more from your side because I feel like maybe 10 years ago or something, it might have been a conversation about, well, let's, you know, make sure we've got a tech-enabled workforce and people know, like, you know, that they feel comfortable using technology and things. And we passed that conversation, but there's other kind of challenges that workforce need to meet up with. So if I take it back to more of our actual clinicians and staff that are actually within the hospitals, there's definitely probably, we've definitely moved the dial quite a bit because more people are actually a bit more computer savvy and technical savvy and even understanding around the importance around privacy and cybersecurity.

3:52And I think that's actually, I've definitely seen that evolve over the last, even I'd say three years. And one of the works that we actually did with the University of Queensland is we actually did a workforce capability research study. and so surveyed, we ended up getting like 1 ,900 clinicians respond. And it was interesting because the privacy cyber maturity was actually quite high, which probably does reflect in terms of people's awareness, which I swear 10 years ago would not have been the same. Whereas now they're comfortable using technology but probably really wanting to understand much more around the right uses and the context and how to actually embed it in their workflows and how to make choices around different technologies.

4:34So that was a really interesting bit to do. But then the workforce aspect is also from making sure we've got the right staff that are right, educated and skilled to support all the new technology. So we've gone from where I came into this space in terms of learning informatics from implementing an EMR. But now it's actually really much more around the AI and what does that mean and what's the right use cases and what's the things that we should be telling clinicians that they should be considering and what's the right governance that actually supports that. So we're continuing to evolve. And so some of the education, we just need to make sure it keeps pace.

5:09Peter Birch: One thing I was thinking of as you were talking is, you know, in the technology world, if we need to spend so much time focused on educating the users on how to use the technology, it kind of suggests to me that the technology is a little bit too complicated. And these days, it probably doesn't need to be that complicated. At least someone that may be coming from outside of healthcare, I think, well, why would you spend so much time trying to teach people when you should just make the technology work for the people? Because a lot of the other technology we use outside of healthcare is pretty intuitive.

5:38Peter Birch: Like you don't need a long kind of roadmap of educating people through the process. What's different in healthcare, do you think? Oh, I think in terms of we've built tech on top of really antiquated processes. If you look at outpatients, for example, it is still very much, I reckon it hasn't changed since the 1970s to some extent. Like you have a room and you see someone and you have a computer. Well, the computer's probably new. But a lot of it's still very paper-based. And so we're asking people to actually embed technology on top of integrated work processes. And the tech doesn't really bend in the same way.

6:16So then we actually force people to follow in sequential steps that aren't natural. And, you know, put in diagnosis in a codified form that doesn't actually make sense for them. They go, can't you just take it from my notes? So where I definitely see the hope, and I'm going to say hope, is with AI in terms of how can it actually take away that clunkiness of tech so that I do what I do and it does the rest of it for me, all the smarts. And so how can actually, if you think about a paper chart, for example, from the good old days of paper records, you flicked through. And a lot of it was by flicking through the notes, you'd actually recognize the stroke consultants, really terrible, terrible handwriting.

6:55So you could flick through, see it, grab it and move on. Using your EMRs, it's paper that's become an electronic record. And the navigation is not simple. You can't flick through and find the stroke consultant's best your handwriting. So there's a lot of things that aren't natural. But if you can have AI actually understand my context and what information I care about for that particular patient and present it to me, that removes all that I need to educate you how to navigate a chart. but it should actually just do it for you. So I've got hope.

7:29Peter Birch: It's the hope with that grimacing emoji face. Last one. Any other final thoughts or things you're hoping people take away from Hick over the couple of days? I think what I definitely want to, like this morning session, in terms of listening to from a national point of view, in terms of where we're going and what we're doing, what's actually been achieved, I think was really positive. And seeing it from the different lenses, I think it highlights to me in terms of, I feel as though for the last three years we've been having the conversation about interoperability and how we actually need all the systems to not be fragmented.

7:59And it's actually a glimmer of hope that we're getting there. We've actually got some real traction. We've got some real motivation. My position from a jurisdiction point of view, I just know that I need to be doing the right thing so I can line up and plug in when everything's ready. So it's super exciting.

8:19My name is Professor Peter Steele. I serve as the Associate Dean for Digital Health and Informatics at the University of Melbourne and the Chief Transformation Officer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

8:29Peter Birch: Excellent. It's great to have you here. What brings you to HIC? I mean, this is the hub of digital health innovation for Australia. And it's great to meet other leaders and learn more about other states beyond Victoria, because I'm new to the country. And I had an opportunity to speak and give a plenary keynote on what I think it will take for Australia to be globally competitive in clinical AI. Actually, tell me a little bit more about that session that you shared up on stage. I think it's important to acknowledge that AI is frontier science. so it requires this continuing cycle of learning and innovation and evaluation to get to really the end product which is a stable model that's going to impact care in a positive way whether that's patient outcomes or workforce experience or economic value and we're at the very early stage of AI as a clinical intervention as I said it's right at the frontier of science and so the question is how do we advance forward as a country to be globally competitive?

9:35And what is the value of being globally competitive? And I think the value of being competitive is both economic and sovereign strategy. I think if we're not designing the future of healthcare with AI ourselves, someone's going to design it for us with their assumptions, their values embedded into the software. So I think there's real advantage to Australia having aspirations to lead in this space. But you can't do that across every hospital or even every university. It requires a lot of resources, a lot of very specific capabilities. So I'm arguing that we create hubs or ecosystems to collate our capabilities so that we can lead globally, building these tools, evaluating those tools, implementing them in the public health services, measuring what works and what doesn't.

10:28in hubs of excellence.

10:30Peter Birch: So yeah, digital health has got a pretty serious acronym problem and we've all got our favourites, but it's a lot, right? And you don't really want to be the person in a meeting that has to ask what something stands for after you've been talking about it for the past couple of weeks. That's why we've built the THT Glossary. It's a free, ever-growing library of digital health terms that we explain in simple language written for people who actually work in the industry. So that's useful if you're brand new in the space or you're one of the veterans that just want a refresher before a meeting. Or maybe you want to check to make sure we've got everything in there.

11:07Peter Birch: It's all there for you. Have a look at talkinghealthtech.com slash glossary. Bookmark it, send it to your team. It's the kind of thing that should exist. So we created it. Hope you enjoy. I'm a big believer in all that. So you're definitely speaking my language in terms of bringing those different perspectives together. Getting that stakeholder buy-in is super important. And as we know, are there steps in that process? Because I feel like getting from where we are to that point, there's a few kind of steps we've got to go before we get to that kind of end. I don't know if there's ever even an end state to that kind of solution either.

11:38Peter Birch: But are there kind of some things that we can be doing now to get us a little bit further that helps us, you know, in the end for health systems that are looking at all of these innovative tools and AI solutions or just different ways to do different models of care and things to have more impact today? Well, I think if you look globally, every health service is going to have to buy some of these tools. But I think it's being discerning about which ones you want to buy versus which ones you want to build and why. And then thinking about if you want to build it internally inside your ecosystem, who should be developing it and what resources do they need?

12:15Hence, these ideas of concentrated centers of excellence. I think to move forward, to advance this discussion, there's a framing issue here. I think rightfully, and I think it's one of the strengths of Australia's culture, is that they're very focused on equality. And so what is the value proposition to funding these centers of excellence? Is it just excellence for excellence's sake? It's going to require investment, financial investment. And so how does that translate to our commitment to fairness? And I think concentrating your capabilities does not necessarily mean concentrating the benefit.

12:48So I envision that these hubs of excellence would have KPIs to disperse those innovations across the whole region, particularly including rural areas. So this isn't a concentration of metro benefit. It's probably going to be a concentration of metro capabilities to serve the entire region. So I think there's some framing discussions that need to make everybody feel comfortable about this value proposition. these hubs also create a magnet draw for industry investments as well so there's not just a health outcomes argument to be made there's also economic prosperity argument to be made do you envisage

13:24Peter Birch: this to be like a government thing because i look at you know we have industry bodies for example with the software side and we've got digital health communities like an AIDH but then uh on one hand you sometimes need that grassroots kind of capability to kind of see real implementation but then at the other time you do need that kind of broad policy kind of direction that's required so or is it a little bit of everything i think it's a little bit of i think it's a little bit of everything i think policy can help shape these ideas execution is going to be at the meso level and it's going to be a compact between universities health services and industry to agree that this is our hub this is where we see the greatest concentration of ability but i think government comes in and governing it properly to make sure that there's fair and transparent funding and selection processes of these hubs and that the KPI is matching the needs of the entire region or state rather than just metro.

14:19Peter Birch: Yeah. Finally, anything else that you would hope that people take away from your session that you shared on stage or things you'll be taking away from HIC over these couple of days? I think that Australia has many of the ingredients to have a bold aspirational vision for leading in digital health. Heidi is one example of what can happen really well in this country. I think it doesn't need to just be a fast follower, although that's a good aspiration too. I think it should be and can be ambitious in this space to lead globally, despite its size.

14:53Anita Ghosh, I'm CEO and founder of InventiveX, so digital health transformation. and my focus has been to look at digital transformation globally across three dimensions, the human, clinical and digital. Backgrounds of clinician and also a digital transformation specialist, have worked in government, industry, on a number of different boards, have an academic role and really passionate about precision, prediction, personalisation and prevention in the future of healthcare.

15:22Peter Birch: Amazing, sounds like you're in the right place but tell us why you're Hick? I'm at Hick because of the Women in Digital Leadership Program. So this is a program that we ran in 2026, the AIDH, Women in Digital Leadership Program, 41 participants across Australia from a diverse range of backgrounds, clinical leaders, health leaders, data informatics, tech innovation, policy, governance, strategy, risk, across a whole range of different parts of Australia. In fact, All states and territories, I think, represented except for two. So great turnout. And it was a program that ran for four months. And so I'm at HIC to speak on the Ignite stage with six of the women that went through the program to share their experiences about what was amazing about it, what worked, their learnings, their takeaways.

16:12And the program itself was actually pretty interesting because we reached into global jurisdictions to understand what women in digital leadership were doing globally and to use those thoughts and ideas to build out a pretty comprehensive program.

16:28Peter Birch: Because a few years ago in the field, we'll have to dig it up somewhere, we've done content in the past at Women in Digital Health Leadership program sessions and shared a bit about it over the years. But what's been particularly different about this year? Well, I think it's the call to action because this year there's a real impetus that women are represented in tech roles 30 % only. So there are 30 % of women in tech, you know, so there's 30 % of our workforce in tech are women. And there's a really interesting economic prosperity perspective here. There's a real issue around the digital economy into the future, diversity, of course, but workforce productivity and a whole range of other factors, which are saying in the next decade, we're going to have potentially about a million roles in tech.

17:14And if the stats at the moment, Pete, are showing that there are 30 % of women who are represented, then there's some work to be done. So I guess that was a bit of an impetus to say, how can we shift that dial and look at a women in digital leadership program that also brought global into the Australian context?

17:31Peter Birch: And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but in healthcare, whilst there's still a lot of work to be done, I think there's, compared to other industries, women are a little bit more represented in healthcare. Like there's, I feel like then there's opportunity then to, if we've got that, you know, base within the healthcare side and so much need on a technology support side, if we can bring some of that amazing talent into that world, surely that's got to be beneficial overall. Absolutely. And it was interesting working with women across this program, as well as our enormous speakers, mentors, and we had project spotlights, et cetera, all who shone a light on the art of the possible, but actually making it happen.

18:11What are the things that can attract women into tech? What are the things that can keep women sticking in tech for the longer term, particularly when we know that at the age of 35, 50 % of women will leave tech? So how can we create tech as a career, as a pathway, as an opportunity for women to stay in and to actually move from surviving to thriving? So that was really interesting.

18:34Peter Birch: And what are the types of backgrounds or careers that you've seen, any even experiences of some of those participants through the program? Yeah, so backgrounds and careers. So clinical leaders, health leaders, they came from a range of roles around governance, policy, data, AI, informatics, but also academia as well. So we had that whole cross-section of government, industry and academia, but also, interestingly, startups. So there were women in startups. There were women who came from tech vendors and women that were involved in product development and innovation and new solutions and system redesign.

19:08So that whole gamut around digital health was well represented.

19:13Peter Birch: And for those that have thought about, oh, that would be interesting exploring what getting into tech would look like for me. but if their perception of getting into tech means that, you know, they receive their induction pack, which is like a hoodie and a dark room and like a laptop that they're coding, is that the right kind of vibe of what getting into tech looks like? I feel like I'm serving you up here, but what does that look like in terms of getting into tech in reality? Well, firstly, getting into tech is about making an impact. And in digital health, It's actually about transforming people's lives, changing workforces for the future, and also making healthcare more accessible, easier.

19:56There's a human element to all of this, and tech is a really key enabler to that. And of course, with data and AI and new advances in technology, it just means that we're actually able to be more responsive, provide good quality care and service and safe services that are accessible. For women and men and across all jurisdictions of demographics and backgrounds, that's a really important future state that we're all aspiring to. We want to be well, stay well, live and die well at home or closer to home that we can. And also for our families and communities, what does tech actually mean and look like for us in terms of a better life?

20:33And so tech is a really key enabler to enabling that to happen, but also through data, AI and new information sources and new ways of working, it's a really exciting career path to pursue. And there's a whole range of different ways and options that women can actually get involved in tech. And I think that's the exciting thing about shining a light on those possibilities.

20:54Peter Birch: And you mentioned up on the stage, there was the women sharing their experiences. What are the types of experiences they were sharing? Well, they came into the program able to share their experiences around their own personal stories. They also experienced mentorship. So we actually had alumni from AIDH involved in supporting the women. And I was also part of the mentoring circle that supported them. But we had these incredible fireside chats. And I wanted to hone in on those because they were quite a game changer. We had incredible women in leadership roles that came in who've actually done the hard yards on difficult digital tech transformation that shared their experience, their journey.

21:32They were really open and transparent about what worked, what didn't work. what were some of the secret sauce suggestions and ideas that women in the room could actually embrace learn be curious about discover and so it was very pragmatic Pete it was very grounding and it was real it was raw it was honest it was truthful and so these are leaders women leaders across Australia and globally that gave their time to speak with the Women in Digital Leadership program and to be open to questions and to share large programs, what worked and what didn't. And I think that human factor of, okay, this person's done it.

22:12It's not out of the realms of possibility for me to do it, right? It's achievable. It's something that I can do. I can learn from. So there was a lot of that reflection piece as well for them in this experience. But the other bit is, can you imagine 41 women across Australia, a new neighborhood, a new community, getting to know each other. So a big part of that was not only bringing global content in, excellent speakers, mentoring, project spotlights, but also to have two days of immersion in Melbourne and a day in Sydney. And then now that the program's finished, there's a legacy. These women are now connected.

22:48They're still gathering together and maintaining that fantastic momentum. I think, you know, it's a great story.

22:54Peter Birch: Yeah. And what was that? And I love that being able to share those examples of successes or lessons and experiences. What's that, the saying about, you know, you can only be what you can see. You can't be what you can't see. Or you can be what you, yeah, you can't be what you can't see. That's right. Exactly. And so if there was one or two kind of key bits of advice, perhaps for women who are working in healthcare, looking at the potential for leadership roles in technology or just generally, is there any kind of advice you'd provide? So this is really interesting. For a lot of the women that joined the program at the beginning of the program, they actually felt that they weren't good enough to be in the program.

23:35They were a little bit cautious about, should I be here? So my first piece of advice is that whatever role you're in and whatever your aspiration, whatever your dream, you need to give it a go. Back yourself. Tech is a fantastic environment and sector and industry to be in. digital health is incredible. And there's almost this vision that we've got that into the future, we won't be talking about women in digital health. We'll be talking about health and we won't even be talking about digital. It'll be health because everything's underpinned. So I think that's the future state and it's so realisable.

24:08It's so achievable. It's so pragmatic. It's so possible. And I think it's only at the end of the program that women realised, hey, I've actually got a role here. I've got a voice, I've got a place and I don't need to be on the balcony. I need to be in the room.

24:23Peter Birch: Yeah. Love that. Last thing, what would you be, what would you say a one or two kind of key things you hope that people take away from the experiences you've been sharing up on stage about the program or even lessons and things that you'd hope that people take away from actually participating in the program? There's probably three key lessons. One is that networks and community are really important and sponsorship for women is key. And so opening doors, getting to where you need to go to and actually being part of your own journey of discovery means that you need to be well networked and be part of a community.

24:57So women in digital leadership provides that. The second is, Pete, that we are so globally connected. And so what the program does offer is that global connection into what's happening in jurisdictions around the world, which is not far away from where we are, really. It's actually easy. It's accessible. We can be part of that. So that's really key. That's the second. And probably the third is self. Three things to think about are thinking about yourself, thinking about understanding yourself, the problem to solve and the visibility of your leadership going forward. What does that look like for you?

25:33We hope you enjoyed this episode of Talking Health Tech. Make sure you like and subscribe and share this episode with someone who might find it valuable. For more information and resources about healthcare innovation, visit TalkingHealthTech.com.

25:50Peter Birch: That's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter on TalkingHealthTech.com slash newsletter so you can be across all the things we do at Talking Health Tech above and beyond this humble little podcast. Thanks so much.