President John F Kennedy said that “partnership is a continuous process that grows stronger each year as we devote ourselves to common tasks”. It’s my experience that the digital health community work best when we partner, collaborate and devote ourselves to common tasks and lofty goals.
Today, I wanted to call out the work we are doing with Victorian and South Australian governments.
We recently worked with DHHS Victoria (Digital Health Branch) on their in-house Digital Innovations in Victorian Health Care Symposium on 18 October. A couple of people reflected to me that to spend a dedicated day showcasing digital health innovation across the Victorian health system was a rare pleasure. I’ve been thinking about their comments and how important it is to take time out of the ‘doing’ to spend time listening, reflecting and sharing our work. The success of the day was measured, in part, by people giving themselves permission to be with others who are devoting themselves to common goals, the pursuit of a better health system and knowing that their contributions to this goal need to be shared and spread widely.
In South Australia, we are working with the newly established Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health on a special digital health event in November. The idea behind this day is also to bring clinicians and local health informatics expertise together. In a sign that the community really value the opportunity to be with others on the same journey - we had an overwhelming response and had to find some more seats to accommodate everyone.
It’s been a pleasure to partner with SA and VIC, as we work together to deliver safe, quality healthcare in the digital world.
I would encourage all of you to ‘indulge’ in taking time to share and learn from each other whenever you can. It’s a journey we are on and you are never alone – we need to continue to share, collaborate and partner, and to do it with purpose.
