Digital health is rapidly transforming healthcare across Australia. For Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs), digital tools such as My Health Record, electronic prescribing. telehealth, secure messaging and consumer apps can improve access, strengthen continuity of care, and support better health outcomes.
To use these technologies safely and effectively, ACCHSs need a strong clinical governance framework—one that upholds clinical quality, protects cultural integrity, and ensures digital systems are safe, secure and community-aligned.
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Strong Leadership and Governance
Digital health governance works best when leadership is shared and culturally grounded.
ACCHSs are encouraged to establish a Clinical Digital Governance Committee, made up of:
- Clinical leaders (GPs, nurses, AHPs)
- IT/digital health leads
- Cultural leaders: Elders, community representatives, consumer voices
This committee oversees digital health decisions, ensures accountability, and aligns digital activity with community priorities and organisational strategy.
It also ensures digital safety sits alongside cultural safety, quality improvement and clinical governance across the organisation.
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Cultural Safety and Community Partnership
Digital health must respect culture, language and community protocols.
This means designing and delivering digital services that:
- Are co-designed with community members, Elders and staff
- Use culturally appropriate language, visuals and explanations
- Respect community expectations for privacy and confidentiality
- Support communication preferences such as storytelling, group learning and yarning
Community voices should influence every stage—planning, design, implementation and review.
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Safe, High-Quality Digital Systems
Digital systems must be safe, usable, secure, and embedded into clinical workflows.
ACCHSs should:
- Assess risks before implementing new tools
- Ensure digital systems protect cultural and personal privacy
- Keep records secure, auditable and accessible at the point of care
- Make sure systems work across multiple sites and in remote settings
- Monitor performance using dashboards, audits, and feedback loops
Regular reviews help identify issues early—such as usability challenges, data accuracy concerns, or cultural safety gaps—so they can be addressed quickly.
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Workforce Capability and Leadership
Digital health success relies on confident, well-supported staff.
ACCHSs should build capability by providing training in:
- Digital literacy and safe system use
- Cultural safety in digital environments
- My Health Record, secure messaging, and telehealth
- Data quality, clinical documentation, and privacy
- Incident response and digital system troubleshooting
Supervision and performance reviews should routinely cover digital health skills, privacy, cultural safety, and clinical safety.
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Evidence, Data and Continuous Improvement
Good governance is driven by evidence, outcomes, and feedback.
ACCHSs should regularly review:
- Digital access and usage data
- Cultural safety indicators
- Privacy incidents or near misses
- Clinical outcomes supported by digital tools
- Community feedback from yarning circles, Elders, carers and families
This helps services adapt digital tools to meet community needs—for example adjusting telehealth for Elders, or refining consent processes for young people.
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Safe Digital Environments and Technical Governance
Safe digital environments require strong technical systems, particularly in regional and remote settings.
ACCHSs should ensure:
- Strong cybersecurity protections
- Role-based access and audit trails
- Reliable infrastructure and contingency plans
- Policies for system outages, backups and data recovery
- Governance for software updates, patches and vendor management
- Respect for data sovereignty and community expectations
Technical governance should work hand-in-hand with clinical and cultural governance.
Conclusion
Clinical governance in digital health is more than compliance—it’s about creating safe, culturally grounded, community-driven digital care.
When ACCHSs weave together clinical safety, cultural integrity and strong system design, digital health becomes a powerful tool for better care, stronger connections and healthier communities.
