A research team at Flinders University will begin building Australia’s first integrated and AI-driven public health and clinical data repository for public health surveillance and emergency response.
Called SMART-PH (Digital Information for Practice in Public Health), the data platform will function as a common digital infrastructure that enables near real-time collaboration and communication practices between public health agencies, health care organizations, and laboratories.
From July, researchers will create a public health data lake, which will then be initially integrated with SA Health’s Digital Analytics Platform. The data platform from South Australia is said to have advanced real-time data linking capabilities with all clinical data, including EMR.
SMART-PH has been supported by a grant of nearly A$3 million (US$2 million) from the Future Medical Research Foundation. The research team aims for implementation and evaluation with South Australian partners between 2027 and 2029.
WHY IT MATTERS
The exploitation of high-quality, real-time public health data is essential for planning and managing public health and healthcare. However, data remains siloed across institutions, the Flinders researchers note.
Courtney Ryder, lead researcher, associate professor and head of the Department of Trauma Research at the Flinders School of Medicine and Public Health, highlighted: “Limited access to high-quality, real-time public health data are creating barriers to effective planning and management of health care and public health issues, especially in remote and rural areas.”
Since AI has been shown to be capable of accessing real-time public health data during the recent pandemic, the team plans to use it to build a public health framework that allows stakeholders to Public health stakeholders respond more effectively, flexibly and effectively.
They said AI has the potential to enhance forecasting, planning and strategic decision-making in public health response, as well as improve disease surveillance and detection.
THE BIGGER TREND
The Secure sharing and reuse of data and information across the health system is one of four key target outcomes in Australia’s Digital Health Blueprint for the next 10 years. Initiatives outlined in realizing this goal include developing a national regulatory framework for health information sharing in states and territories as well as continuing to modernize the Records my health.
Accessible data and notification data Important decision making at the individual, community and national levels is also the outcome goal of The government’s updated National Digital Health Strategy 2023-2028. To meet this goal, a priority action is to use health information for research and public health purposes.
