16 March 2026 - Top Stories

Gold Coast Health's deployment of Alcidion's Miya Precision across its hospitals and community network, integrated with the EMR, marks a major move toward device-agnostic remote monitoring in Australia.

By linking with the EMR, Miya Precision can pull real-time vital signs from devices at patients’ homes and feed them into clinical workflows regardless of vendor, potentially easing bed-based capacity constraints. However, it raises governance and interoperability questions as data crosses boundaries.

Edith Cowan University researchers tested I-VADE VR training for de-escalation with 221 nursing students, finding a measurable boost in confidence. The approach is scalable but demands investment in hardware, platforms and outcomes measurement to prove real-world impact.

The Health Minister announced a nationwide pharmacist-led prescribing trial from January 2027, subsidising pharmacists to PBS-eligible levels for oral contraceptives and certain antibiotics, which will push IT teams to deliver interoperable prescribing records and robust safety governance; rural WIP changes widen access but require clearer guidance for clinicians who split time across sites.

Continuity of midwifery care, shown to halve birth trauma in a large Australian study, underscoring the value of ongoing relationships in maternity services and prompting decisions to scale funding and capacity so rural and underserved areas can participate.

• Gold Coast Health signed a deal with Alcidion to deploy Miya Precision across its hospitals and community network, pushing device-agnostic remote monitoring into EMR workflows and forcing Australian health tech leaders to prioritise interoperable data standards and governance.
• Edith Cowan University researchers trialed I-VADE VR de-escalation training with 221 nursing students, a result that pushes health systems to decide on scalable, cost-effective violence management training and to plan for investment in hardware, platforms and evaluation.
• The Health Minister announced a nationwide pharmacist-led prescribing trial starting January 2027, subsidising pharmacists to PBS-eligible levels for oral contraceptives and certain antibiotics, which compels health IT teams to deliver interoperable prescribing records and robust safety governance.
• RACGP welcomed rural WIP changes that alter full-time equivalent calculations to cover MM3 to MM7 locations, broadening access for rural clinicians and pressuring guidance development to reduce uncertainty for practitioners who split time between rural and metropolitan work.
• Continuity of midwifery care with small teams halves birth trauma in a 2020–21 Australian study of 3,682 births, creating an incentive for policymakers and health providers to scale continuity models while addressing funding and access gaps that could limit rural uptake.
• The BAC on mammograms AI scoring platform creates an opportunity for Australian radiology AI vendors to push BAC scoring into practice, while clinicians must validate local predictive value and integration with existing risk tools.
• MAPI blood test distinguishes metabolic dysfunction–associated liver disease from alcohol-related injury using five routine metrics, enabling immediate use in primary care and hepatology and pressuring primary care IT systems to support rapid risk stratification workflows.