NIIN Health Alliance Bulletin – Q2 2025

Q2 2025

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The National Industry Innovation Network (NIIN) is a dynamic network that brings together industry, university and government partners to drive digital technology advancements in economy and society. With its ready-to-access capability and existing infrastructure, the NIIN Health Alliance provides a low-risk avenue for health agencies and hospital operators to engage in innovation activities. The NIIN Innovation Centrals, Research Chairs, health-focused labs, and specialised technology centres serve as a collaborative hub for industry, health agencies, hospital operators, researchers, and students tackling critical healthcare challenges, collectively using digital innovation.

We are halfway through 2025 and a lot have been accomplished across the NIIN Health Alliance! We hope you can feel the excitement and optimism for the second half of 2025, and see interesting opportunities to collaborate and partner with fellow NIIN Health Alliance partners across Australia and the region beyond.

As always, please get in touch with us to find out how you can be more involved!

NIIN Health Alliance Highlights

NIIN Health Alliance represented @ Digital Health Festival 2025 by ArchiTech Network and Communications Solutions

Rob Russell (right, in the above right picture) and the ArchiTech team proudly represented the NIIN Health Alliance at Australia’s premier conference for digital health innovation in May 2025, showcasing how technology is transforming healthcare by improving patient outcomes, empowering clinicians and enabling more connected, secure and intelligent care environments. 

Amongst the many systems and solutions featured at their conference booth is an AI-powered Digital Front Door solution where Agentic AI assistants, intelligent agents and automation can enhance both the patient and clinician experience. From automating routine tasks and triaging patient bookings or queries to supporting diagnostics and care coordination, AI empowers healthcare teams to focus more on patient care.

Rob and team is currently scoping a Cisco CDA (Country Digital Acceleraton) funded proof of value/concept project for a district health service, as well as partnering with Innovation Central Canberra (ICC) to produce a research paper to uncover high impact Digital Front Door use cases, relevant compliance standards as well as barriers to entry for the Aged Care sector. Please contact Rob or Erin Stacey (ICC) if you are keen to find out more about these ongoing projects.

NIIN Health Alliance Advisory Committee Inaugural Meeting

The newly formed NIIN Health Alliance Advisory Committee (HAAC) kicked off its term with a packed agenda for its inaugural meeting on 30th April 2025, covering the roles and charter of the advisory committee, status updates of the many NIIN Health Alliance activities and plans, as well as updates on the broader NIIN initiatives (including the NIIN submission to the Federal Government on Strategic Examination of R&D in Australia). 

The Advisory Committee currently consists of the following members:

• Professor Vishaal Kishore, RMIT University (NIIN HAAC Chair)
• Professor Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Monash University Malaysia (Member)
• Dr Alison Craswell, University of The Sunshine Coast (Member)
• Honarary Professor Brendan Lovelock, RMIT University (Member)
• Clarence Barboza, Cisco (Member)
• Rob Russell, ArchiTech Network & Communications Solutions (Member)
• Marcus Lim, RMIT University (NIIN HAAC Secretariat)

The Advisory Committee meets on a quarterly basis and will continue to review and advise on the Health Alliance strategic directions and plan of activities. Please contact Marcus Lim if you would like to find out more.

Successful Completion of Digital Skills for Health SSP Pilot!

Following an incredibly intensive 12 months of work, the consortium of Grampians Health, RMIT College of Vocational Education, RMIT Health Transformation Lab and Cisco have now concluded the Digital Skills for Health SSP pilot and submitted its final reports to the Victoria Government Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions (DJSIR). 

Despite tight timelines, the partnership enabled continued iterative design to successfully deliver 5 digital health focused training courses across 3 intakes, totaling 365 learners, with high satisfaction scores amongst learners.

Here are some key highlights of achievements based on formal evaluation results:

• 93% of participants expressed the amount of study required for each of the courses was “just right”,
• 86% of participants reported high levels of satisfaction with course’s content,
• 76% of all participants indicated they could apply the learning directly to their roles,
• 91% of all participants felt that Grampians Health would benefit from them participating in their respective courses.

The pilot also received extensive recognition and exposure, including:

The project team is currently exploring various pathways to further expand on the successes. Please contact Marcus Lim if you would like to find out more.

Mapping Technologies and Innovation Priorities in Clinical Care of Older Adults

Australia’s care sector for older adults is under intensifying pressures, including a rapidly changing policy landscape and reporting requirements, rising complexity of care needs, persistent workforce challenges, and fragmented systems of service delivery. However, digital health technologies present significant opportunities to support clinical care across both residential and home-based settings. Yet adoption and integration remain inconsistent, with limited uptake of digital tools and wide variation in digital capability across providers.

Alison Craswell, NIIN Research Chair for Digital Health and Ageing at the University of the Sunshine Coast, is leading a study to deepen our understanding and gather evidence for the need for investment in infrastructure, stronger co-design processes, targeted workforce development, and deeper integration of digital systems into everyday clinical workflows. Please reach out to Alison if you are keen to contribute to this work. 

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International Women in Engineering Day celebrates the talent of women engineers 

International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) provides a clear call to women to shape the world. Taking place annually on June 23rd, INWED is an international awareness campaign celebrating the work and achievements of women engineers. Amongst women highlighted this year by South Australia’s Chief Scientist Professor Craig Simmons, is Professor Trish Williams, our NIIN Research Chair in Digital Health Systems, Cisco-Flinders Digital Health Design Lab at Flinders University, for her internationally-recognised leading work in health informatics security, software and safety.

Trish (in below picture with Declan Hadley, Cisco UK) was recently on the Australian delegation that contributed to critical discussions at the ISO/TC215 technical committee meeting in London, where experts from over 20 countries around the world collaborated on defining next generation standards to make health data safer, more accessible, and more interoperable, to support better health outcomes through trusted digital infrastructures.

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Tech in Sight: Cyber Security Devices in MedTech

In June 2025, Innovation Central Adelaide (ICA) hosted a Tech in Sight Executive Roundtable that provided valuable insights about the future of cybersecurity for Australia’s MedTech sector. Key takeaways from the roundtable included: criticality of cybersecurity, compliance and standards, device lifecycle and maintenance, human factor and culture, economic and innovation challenges, accountability and ownership, design and integration as well as future directions.

The rich discussion will help inform ICA’s next steps, including the development of whitepapers and policy guides. Pease contact Kathryn if you have any questions, or would like to be updated on future opportunities. 

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Building on these work, the NIIN Health Alliance is now seeking to capture and showcase current practices and demonstrated capabilities in the 3 core areas with the Health Tech Pulse Survey. which will be opened from July to October 2025. The survey data will then guide the design and agenda for showcasing of projects at upcoming Health Alliance roundtables and activities.

We invite you to participate in this brief pulse survey (5 to 10 minutes), as well as share the pulse survey as broadly as possible across the healthcare industry. 

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Current NIIN Health Alliance Partners and Collaborators