An Allied Health Professions Australia survey has found the sector is ready for digital transformation, but ongoing policy and funding commitments are needed.
AHPA’s Allied Health Digital Transformation Survey Report, released on 17 February 2025, reports on the largest survey of Australian allied health practitioners and their use of digital products. A diverse cohort of 2,419 participants from 36 professions including audiology responded.
Conducted in 2024 in collaboration with the Australian Digital Health Agency, the survey sought to understand allied health professionals’ current awareness, use and readiness to use Provider Connect Australia, My Health Record and electronic prescribing.
The report summarises key findings across the sector, presents results by professional discipline where relevant, makes key recommendations about the next steps to assist digital uplift of the allied health sector and identifies topics requiring further exploration.
Key recommendations include:
- A sector wide education campaign tailored to the unique and diverse demographic characteristics of the allied health professionals (AHP) workforce.
- Interoperable digital products fit for purpose to the allied health workforce.
- Expansion of the type of information AHPs can author in My Health Record.
- Terminology datasets to enable sharing of allied health clinical information within an interoperable digital ecosystem.
AHPA chief executive Ms Bronwyn Morris-Donovan said the report was a crucial resource for allied health professionals and health policymakers to understand the bigger picture and integrate allied health into the digital ecosystem.
“The survey findings reinforce our position that ongoing policy and funding commitment is required from the Commonwealth to build the necessary allied health digital infrastructure to strengthen capacity and capability of the sector,” she said.
“The report is a timely and tangible resource to highlight that there is no one-size fits all approach to accelerating uplift in use of the key digital products within the allied health sector.
“We look forward to working with the Australian Digital Health Agency and our 36 member organisations to swiftly operationalise the recommendations.”
Member organisations include Audiology Australia, Speech Pathology Australia and the Australian Music Therapy Association.
More reading
Government offer to boost uptake of digital health tools in allied health industry
AHPA disappointed that allied health was overlooked in Gov campaign on healthcare careers
Online consultations help shape first National Allied Health Workforce Strategy
