The third National Policy Roadmap for AI in Healthcare, released today, was developed by the Australian Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAAiH) and supported by the Australian Institute of Health Innovation (AIHI), the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre (DHCRC), CSIRO's Australian eHealth Research Centre and RMIT University. It provides a renewed national policy agenda to support the safe, effective and widespread adoption of AI across the health system.

The Roadmap is informed by extensive consultation across the healthcare sector, incorporating input from more than 96 organisations and 20 peak bodies and government agencies. It makes 28 recommendations across eight priority areas including leadership, governance, sovereign capability, workforce development, consumer engagement, industry and research.

Professor Enrico Coiera, lead author, AAAiH Founder and AIHI Director, said Australia has reached a critical point in determining how AI will shape the future of healthcare. "Healthcare is well known for its inertia to change and so we must find new agile ways to meet these historic challenges. Our mantra must be: Don't walk. Run," Professor Coiera said.

Adjunct Professor Annette Schmiede, CEO of the Digital Health Cooperative Research Centre, said the Roadmap provides an important opportunity to align Australia's efforts and ensure the responsible use of AI across healthcare.

"We have witnessed first-hand across our research projects and initiatives the increasing use of AI across health settings. The challenge now is to ensure adoption is guided by clear evidence, strong governance and collaboration across the sector," Adjunct Professor Schmiede said.

Among its key recommendations, the Roadmap makes a strong call for Australia to develop sovereign AI capability, building sufficient technological independence, local expertise, infrastructure and governance to reduce reliance on international technology providers. It recommends the development of Australian-controlled generative AI capabilities, optimised to local healthcare needs and governed within Australia.

The Roadmap also calls for investment in privacy-preserving AI technologies such as federated learning, enabling AI development without necessarily sharing raw patient data across institutions and for AI systems to be locally calibrated to Australian populations, services and health needs rather than relying on imported models.

To accelerate adoption, the Roadmap recommends national best-practice guidance on the procurement, implementation and operation of clinical AI, helping health services move beyond isolated pilots to large-scale deployment.

For consumers, it proposes a national AI-enabled 'front door' for healthcare, using AI to improve access to and navigation across services such as 1800 Medicare and My Aged Care.

The Roadmap further calls for major investment in AI research, including dedicated AI funding pathways through the NHMRC and MRFF and the establishment of one or more large-scale Centres of Research Excellence in Healthcare AI.

The Roadmap also recommends AI training for the healthcare workforce and the creation of a national Chief AI Officer training program to develop a new generation of leaders capable of driving the procurement, governance and implementation of AI across healthcare organisations.

Read the Roadmap here.