Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association (AHHA)

Congratulations to Western Queensland PHN on the launch of their innovative Framework for rural and remote healthcare! 👏 We’re proud to see this important work come to life, with AHHA’s Director of Business Development, Suzzie Harvey, contributing her expertise alongside a passionate and dedicated team.

We’re so excited to welcome the Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association (AHHA) as an Official Community Partner for Australian Healthcare Week 2026! 🎉 As the national peak body for public and not-for-profit hospitals and healthcare providers, AHHA is helping shape a stronger, more sustainable health system, championing innovation, policy reform, and high-quality care for communities across Australia. 📍 Join us on 11–12 March 2026 at the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) for Australian Healthcare Week — the Southern Hemisphere’s biggest celebration of healthcare, innovation, and leadership. 🔗 Learn more and register your interest: https://lnkd.in/gJBwQZ5n #AustralianHealthcareWeek #AHHA #HealthcareLeadership #HealthInnovation #CommunityCare

As we wrap up Women's Health Week for 2025, there has been a strong and much-needed focus on empowering women to prioritise their health and wellbeing. But individual health is only part of the picture. With women making up a majority of Australia’s health workforce, it’s critical that our health system also says yes to women in leadership. Greater representation of women in decision-making roles leads to more inclusive policies, stronger workforce support, and better health outcomes for women across the country. AHHA advocates for a health system that reflects the diversity of those who work in it and those it serves. Equity in leadership is not just a fairness issue, it’s a systems issue. #WomensHealthWeek #SayYesToYou #HealthSystemLeadership #EquityInHealth #AHHA

Earlier this week, AHHA Ltd Executive Director, Knowledge Translation Adj A/Prof Rebecca Haddock, joined 55 other member organisations passionate about driving improvements in rural health at the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA)’s roundtable launching their report, The Forgotten Health Spend: A Report on the Expenditure Deficit in Rural Australia. The report details the systemic inequity that faces Australians living in the bush - with rural and remote communities receiving $8.35 billion less in health funding each year (equivalent to $1,090 less per person) compared with metropolitan areas. Critically, the report highlights that while Governments, at both the Federal and the State and Territory level, acknowledge and have put in place measures to address ongoing disparity in rural health expenditure, these efforts continue to tinker at the edges of reform, with current approaches fundamentally not fit for purpose in rural areas. Chapter 7 of the NRHA report sets out a series of stakeholder-identified opportunities for reform, of which reflect the reality of service delivery in thin and non-existent markets. These include: • Defining levels of reasonable access to care and regional planning approaches to determine how these levels can be met at a regional level • Coordinated and flexible funding to support services across defined regions • Implementing localised multidisciplinary models of service delivery across sectors. As the authors note, ‘It was telling how consistent the suggested approaches were across stakeholders, with most suggesting similar solutions’ – a sentiment we at the AHHA share, reflecting the opportunities for reform identified in the Deeble Institute for Health Policy Research Perspectives Brief: Policy alignment for place-based solutions for better health outcomes in rural and remote communities. The Brief underscores the need to shift from the current fragmented, input-focused system to coordinated, outcome-based approaches to drive improvements in rural health, highlighting the opportunity available in: • Adopting the Measuring What Matters wellbeing framework, as a tool for strengthening outcomes measurement • Pooled funding, allocated through a relational commissioning approach, to reduce administrative burden and enable local flexibility in decision-making • Aligning workforce policy and funding levers across health, aged care and disability sectors, to support local workforce planning Shared between both papers is the recognition that strong and transparent leadership is needed to align, integrate and enable government policies and programs to deliver community-led, place-based solutions, so that every Australian, no matter where they live, can access a fair and sustainable health system. Read the NRHA Report: https://ow.ly/6nRz50WNib1 Read the Deeble Brief: https://ow.ly/KG5550WNiaX

AHHA is proud to be a Community Partner for Australian Healthcare Week 2026, join us there and find out more: https://lnkd.in/gNtGjsFZ Together, we’re strengthening networks, elevating important conversations, and championing better care outcomes across Australia. 📍ICC Sydney | 11–12 March 2026 🌐 https://lnkd.in/eiMCNE6d #AHW #CommunityHealth #PartnershipsInCare

AHHA is proud to be part of today’s roundtable in Canberra, hosted by the National Rural Health Alliance. With voices from across the sector and government, together we’re contributing to vital conversations on funding, telehealth, and equitable access, key pillars for strengthening rural and remote healthcare. #RuralHealth #HealthEquity #StrongerRuralCommunities #Telehealth #RuralPolicy

Earlier this year, the Grattan Institute reported that more than 1 in 5 Australians who saw a specialist in 2023 were charged a fee deemed ‘extreme’, more than three times the Medicare schedule. Today’s Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio National Breakfast interview with Dr Rachel David, CEO of Private Healthcare Australia, further highlighted the systemic nature of the issue. Dr David noted that specialist fees have surged post-pandemic, particularly in high-income areas where fees tend to be higher and appointments harder to secure. She also called for reform to the process of informed financial consent, emphasising the need for stronger consumer protections and greater transparency. These issues aren’t new. In a Deeble Institute Issues Brief published back in 2020, we raised the need for precisely these types of reforms. The Brief, Optimising health care through specialist referral reforms, outlined how outdated referral rules contribute to cost blowouts and inequities, and proposed practical solutions, including decoupling billing from referral status and introducing protections against increased costs for patients under long-term specialist care. 📄 Read our Brief: https://lnkd.in/gsFhWbQB 🎧 Listen to the ABC segment: https://lnkd.in/gAZ6HG3g #HealthPolicy #ReferralReform #DeebleInstitute #AHHA #Medicare #EquityInHealthcare #ValueBasedCare #InformedConsent

In the August edition of The Health Advocate, AHHA Policy Officer Emma Walsh, examines the growing pressures on Australia’s health system as our population ages, and the critical role of primary care in delivering timely, compassionate palliative care. With up to 27% of Australians projected to be aged 65+ by 2071, the demand for chronic and end-of-life care is rising. Yet most people receive palliative care just 15 days before death. This article, part of the ELDAC aged care feature, highlights the need for integrated, person-centred care and the importance of supporting primary care providers with the tools and resources they need to lead this change. 📖 Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/gaGBS_sT #THA #ELDAC #HealthAdvocacy #PalliativeCare #PrimaryCare #AgedCare #AHHA #HealthSystem

🩺The update ELDAC Primary Care Toolkit has been designed to support primary care professionals & practices with the knowledge, skills & confidence to provide palliative care to older people. Find it here 🔗 https://lnkd.in/g85yh_DK #PrimaryCare #GeneralPractice #PalliativeCare #AgedCare Australian Healthcare & Hospitals Association (AHHA) Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association (APNA)